Rebirth of the guardians
by Wingshad0w
Summary: Six years before the end of NC0 a war engulfs the continent and the modern hellic republic and guylos empire resurrect the Guardian force to battle their foe. At the forefront of this war, the last earthling and a strange spirit both from ages ago
1. Chapter 1

-Rebirth of the Guardians - The long awaited prequel to Zoids dysfunctional families.

Chapter one – the remaking of the guardian force.

This takes place six years before dysfunctional families, making reddy 8 and Tom 21 (meaning that in Dysfunctional Families they are 14 and 27 respectively). They are the only characters with predominant featuring that have been planned to carry into Families. Other characters may be featured in the sequel to families (I will make it) but I can't be sure because I don't plan this stuff out.

-Disclaimer- this is my own 'history' of the zoids continent, Tom and Reddy are my characters and the long awaited sequel/prequel are mine. Feel free to take the 'history' that I use without directly crediting me, but I would like to be asked about the characters.

-Begin-

He was the best candidate to join the force. His only requirements were to mainly be a solo man. He had explained how he would like to operate if possible. He would guard an area in the name of the Guardian Force; he would carry out missions in his area without question. And would reinforce friendly or civilian units in his area. It was accepted so he joined the Guardian force and was deployed far into the war zone in a moderately populated valley sanctuary within the foreboding mountains.

His name was Thomas Reynolds. He had a well customized command wolf. He also had the strange ability to turn his skin as black as darkness itself. Despite this strange ability he showed himself to be competent and dedicated so there was no objection to him going.

There had been an ongoing war between the provinces of Helia and guylar, former parts of the Helic republic and Guylos empire. Being the first nations to break off they also decided to carry on the age old feud between nations. It had been going on for hundreds of years on and off. The last all out war had been over 200 years ago but there had been border conflicts now and then. With the longest peace between the two countries being twenty years thus far, but it had led to the current thirteen year war that had dragged the northern half of the continent that was surmised of independent nations in the former Helic republic and Guylos empire.

Once the modern, much smaller but still strong, republic and empire were threatened the two rulers, king Rudolph Zeppelin the eight, and the second president Louise Camford, decided to revive and organization that had been removed only shortly after the forming of the majority of the independent nations. The guardian force.

Quickly using the elite soldiers from the pre-existing armies of the two nations to start the armies up once a defensive force had been established on the border, and in friendly nations, the call for new recruits went out en-masse.

Now two months later this six foot three man with blue eyes, brown hair and a general satisfied look about him went off to a forward base to receive his assignment.

Upon arriving, since he had his own zoid his items were transported to a base area. Where he would operate out of. It was a small building. There were a few Force members there. But they were zoid less. There was a five zoid hangar and a small tower that had an observation point with a single gun at the top. After his stuff was all in the right spots Tom made friends with his crew.

He started with the guy moving his stuff with a big crane. "Hey I'm Tom. I'm going to be the mobile defense guy. Or that's what they called me."

"What?" Came the cry of the crane operator.

Tom smacked himself in the forehead. "_Of course he can't hear me. That crane is too damn loud._"

"Just wait until I put your thing down." A moment passed and he did just that.

"That's some nice custom weapons you got there. A Gatling gun, a dual barreled rifle, a one barreled gun turret with dual mounted rapid fire weapons. I'm surprised the military would dare to pay your ammunition bill." The crane operator shouted due to the distance between the two people. He began to walk closer. Tom did the same. "I'm Oliver Kerensky. I'm the main tech guy. Odds are I'll repair and move your damaged zoid within the hangar. My assistant will reload and do the minor repairs." He was wearing a faded light blue shirt and pants. He wore a light blue baseball cap with the guardian force logo on the front. He always wore it backwards though. His face was scruffy and he needed to shave. And his hair was brown while his eyes were green.

"Tom Reynolds, a new volunteer. Got here with almost no official training."

"How desperate are they to do something like that." Oliver said as he smacked his forehead and chuckled.

Tom grinned knowingly and his hand turned black. "Someone who can do stuff like this" Tom said as black flames leapt out of his arm, "should survive on the battlefield."

"Well good luck then. Go do whatever you have to do." Oliver waved Tom off as he got back to moving the various things that had to be moved.

On Tom's way out he ran into a younger, shorter, looking fellow. Both of them fell over upon impact. "Hello there comet."

"Oh I'm sorry, just the crane needs lubricant soon. I didn't look. And now let's waste some more time talking shall we." The new guy was 21, but he looked younger. Unlike Tom who looked much older. He was short, had blonde hair, he wore a less faded version of Oliver's clothing. "Well my name is John silves. Oliver, the main tech guy, calls me his apprentice, who I guess I am, but I can do almost every job but yours."

"What's my job?" Tom asked.

"Well since command said that there was going to be a new guy, and I know you're not one of our current six base members you must be the new zoids pilot. You've got a command wolf correct?" John asked, Tom nodded yes, "Then why did you ask me what your job is."

"I just wanted to know if HQ's version of my job and your version differed." Tom said as he got up. "_Smart kid, if Sherlock Holmes was real that's the type of thinking he would do too._" Tom and John walked off in different directions, John to the hanger, Tom to the quarters.

Other than the watch tower the quarters were just like a larger house. It seemed like the guardian force had bought a house and thrown the hangar and observation tower, but the hangar had looked like it was always part of the house.

All of the six people that lived in the building had their own rooms. The 'mess hall' was a dining room with three four person tables. The chef and gunner could often be found in there. And they were the next people Tom met.

"Greetings you people seem to be the only people who have any time to relax out of everyone that I have met here." Tom said to a man who wore a chef's uniform, and a man who wore a regular uniform. It was obvious who the first one was, the second one Tom was not sure of, commander, radar man, extra mechanic? In his mind all were possibilities.  
"Ah hello new guy." Came the casual friendly voice of the man at a table looking out the window. "We're the only people here who you've seen relax because were the only ones who know how to really relax." The man got up and shook hands with Tom, "I'm the gunner guy, and I help old chef Perrone when I'm not gunning." The chef waved, "And vice versa. Cause this guy is really good with the turret."

"That's great." Tom said. "My name's Tom, and despite you saying all that stuff I still don't know your name."

"Ah, my name is Devon Silverman. You are the new pilot that's replacing our two dead ones. You have to be good if you can replace them."

"Really what were they like?"

"Well I they were average folks and all, but there were two of them and they had team work. Not to mention two stable peteras. While you've got one stable command wolf. The fact is the two were shot down by a group of six zabats. And odds are you alone are not enough to take them." Devon got back to looking out the window.

"Well I'll have you know I was the amazing solo team, team ryu before this and I've taken out four zabats in one match, if I get surprise what's two more."

"Arrogant aren't you." Devon said with slight disdain in his voice.

"What you call arrogance I call confidence. You must have low opinions of my 2000 win no loss ever solo streak."

Devon raised an eyebrow, "Ah well. There's difference between matches and battles."

Tom just smiled with a knowing grin. "Yes there is, but what would you know. You're zoid-less now and odds are you were zoid-less before the war. Just don't try to insult me or underestimate me, you'll regret it."

Chef Perrone looked up, "Hey don't insult my cooking and I'm perfectly happy with you win or loose."

"That's good." Tom shook hands with Perrone and then walked to his quarters.

When he got to his room he mentally called the place 'the inn'. It was just like some of the nicer, zoid accommodating, inns he had been to in his life as a zoid battle participant. This had been a six year stint. Not one loss ever, he wasn't worried about the trouble six zabats could ever cause him. He was certain if he could get the advantage of surprise he could beat them without taking a single hit.

On the way out he ran into two clip board bearing people. One was a girl the other a man. They walked right by Tom and were almost at the stairs when Tom decided to make some noise. "Ahem." Was all he said.

"Oh hi." Was the rushed response he got from the girl.

Then the girl and guy turned around. "Oh wait I thought you were one of the old pilots." The girl said, "But it looks like you're the new guy."

"By old pilots you mean the ones that were shot down and probably killed, correct?"

"Yeah."

"So did you just mistake me for a dead guy."

"Oh my." The girl said as she put her hand to her mouth and blushed.

"At over six feet tall I really stand out." Tom sighed, "You two look like you are nerds. Do you know my name."

"Name, time of enlistment, age, height, and a bunch of other things." The guy said.

"Ah but I know nothing about you other than the fact that you are nerds."

"I'm Robert Clements." The guy said.

"Just call me jess." The girl added on.

"No last name for you?" Tom said, "Odds are you are my superiors, so what about military statues and all that stuff they sent me to boot camp for?"

"Just jess in 'the inn' will work with me."

"Ah I'm correct in my considering this place was an inn then." Tom said as he moved from one side of the door frame to the other.

"Yes, it was my grandparent's inn before they were killed in town. Both Robert and I were from around the area and signed up specifically for this location when we heard it was an army post." Jess sighed.

"Well go on, I don't want to make a pretty girl cry." Tom waved the two away. "I've still got to see the major in charge, my guess is she's in the observation tower, no?"

"Yes, she was working on something and wanted us to leave. Me to get some parts, Robert to get food." Jess said.

"She wants you to come back, Robert to leave. Wonder what I'll end up walking in on." Tom laughed out loud. "Please ignore my twisted sense of humor. It should pass."

Tom walked up the hallway towards where the two tech nerds came from. There was a hatch and the end of a short set of stairs. At the moment it was closed. "Should I knock?" Tom spoke to himself. "Official protocol says zilch. If someone wanted to tell me to knock it would have been one of the last two I met, I told them I was going this way. I'll barge in; say that there was no advisory against if it was the wrong idea." Tom reasoned. Then he paused, "How bad of a person am I to think of an excuse before I do something. Oh well conscious not making this door any heavier." Tom gave the hatch an experimental nudge up. It moved, that meant it was un-locked. With a hint of effort Tom shoved the hatch up. Tom emerged into a very, very, very, (dare I say it?) very hot room. "_God this is worse than the desert by a mile. It's so stuffy. The rest of 'the inn' has windows and almost all of them are open. This is a glass bubble, and it seems to lack central air or a fan even._" Then Tom felt a momentary breeze, air conditioning. "_Salvation._" The breeze stopped, "_Eternal damnation_"

When the breeze stopped a feminine voice said, startled, "Ow, damn it! That stupid wire shocked me." A moment paused. "Oh jess you're here, do you have the gear, filter and pipe."

Tom went up an extra step or two putting not a foot in the actual observation bubble. He around the hatch to face the major. "Well no, but I am a –oh! - You really must be hot." There in front of Tom the major was working at a panel around Tom's head height, wearing undergarments only from the waist up. "I'll be going now." Tom turned around and got down the stairs to meet jess carrying the requested items. Jess looked confused when she saw how strong Tom was blushing but she ignored it. "Jess, is the air conditioning broken?"

"Yeah, why do you ask?" She said, almost suspicious but mostly confused.

"I think I can fix it. But the major set herself up for quite the awkward situation. So, um could you ask her to let me take care of it? I'll be somewhere." Tom walked off.

Jess was quite confused at that little talk, but she decided to go through with it anyway. "Major Darlain the new guy says –oh- I now can see why he was embarrassed. Tell me next time to tell anyone coming not to come, or at least knock first. You're bound to set yourself up for that if you don't." Jess left the box in the chamber with the silent major. She then walked down the hall and looked in Tom's room. "He's not here. Where could he be?"

Actually Tom was in the hangar, no longer red in the face, talking with Robert while looking at the blue prints for the air conditioner unit. "We think either this," Robert pointed to one technical device, "Or this," another technical device, "is broken. Also the tube that carries the coolant seems to be leaking, so we have a better one to replace it."

Tom looked the plans over. "I already know how to fix the entire thing; I used to have to repair one. And also let me guess, your filter won't fit?"

Robert nodded, "We try different sizes but none work."

"Just get me a bigger size I'll get it to work before dinner."

He was true to his word, an hour before dinner, just an hour after he started, it was done, and while 'the inn' was airy enough the observation tower and hangar were much more closed and quite hot and those locations felt relief.

When Tom was done he confronted the major, "It's done." He said as he fished around for his shirt, "If you wait a few minutes this place will be tolerably cool and you can keep your clothes on."

"My names Major Relena Darlain, what's yours?" Tom really looked at the major for the first time. She had wavy brown hair, a soft face, an amazing figure, and what looked to be decent height about her. Add to that her vivid green eyes and Tom could loose his breath, if he had any sort of romantic tendencies.

"Tom Reynolds kinda forgot my rank. Don't think it'll really matter once people see my battlefield record."

"But you don't have one." Relena commented.

"Inform me when those six zabats come a callin' I'll get one soon enough." Soon enough was sooner that soon was suspected to be.

The next day the now cooled radar facility and its staff found the six zabats, they showed up just a little after half the day had passed.

Already Tom was in his zoid's cockpit. Oliver was at the crane controls moving a turret with a small single barreled gun at either side of it and a center that looked like it could have been a UFO on top of the command wolf. John was at the joining point shifting the things into place. And making some final checks on the turret itself. All three looked at the speaker once the announcement was made about enemies in radar range. If only on the border of it.

Oliver looked at Tom, "You talked like you were going to spring into action once they appeared, but you're not springing."

"Nah, I have feeling that they know our radar range. I would like to get at them before they enter it. Possibly get them before they get off the ground. Besides, I need this turret to be in order and I need to paint this thing." The brown and black earthy tones really bored Tom. "I was thinking a green color it is the new official color and all."

"That's all? You could be out by tomorrow if you waited until you returned to do the painting."

"Nah, I'll need to wait. Fact is I need to train my new gunner."

"New gunner, who's that?"

"Well I always wanted to steal an apprentice."

"John. What do you see in him?" At the mention of that John perked up, although neither Tom nor Oliver could see his face or figure John's interest out.

"Well he can help with minor repairs that will be handy against tougher opponents or larger numbers. Also he's smart so he should pick up fast. And last and by far the most important it that he cares about the zoids and has a genuine interest in them. Will I let him pilot my command wolf on that alone, no. But that's more than enough to get him to accompany me on longer outings." Tom had not changed his pattern of pushing buttons to help with the computer synch. "Well john, I'm waiting for an answer."

John stopped entirely.

"Yeah john, we need an answer too." Oliver said as he turned to face his apprentice.

"Um, I guess I'll do it."

"Good." Tom said as he pushed one last button. "Get in the cockpit; I've got the simulator started already."

-Some time later-

John had become good at being the gunner. And in the entire time he had spent training there had been no attacks in the official response area of their base. So that had led to lots of practice, and a chance to completely re-paint the command wolf to a green color.

All the crew liked the color. And the golden Guardian Force symbols added on the face, gun, and sides seemed to complement it well. Major Darlain was especially impressed. And took some time from her normal strictness to let her weakness to Tom grow.

"It's very beautiful." She commented late on the night that it was complete.

"Ah so the royal bitch of discipline has a sense of beauty." Came the sarcastic comment from Tom.

"How dare you insult you're commander!" Came a furious shout. Really she was furious that he had been able to find her soft/awkward side every time he appeared. And then the sarcasm and insults didn't help either. Furious at the latest of those she ran over and slapped him.

"Well I won't complain about what I deserve." Tom chuckled as though all that was going on was big joke.

"And what are you doing awake at this hour!" Major Darlain said trying to find an excuse to punish him.

"It's my patrol tonight with Chef Perrone. We thought you were an intruder so I went to deal with you. Never would have guessed how well you sneak by the security system." Tom looked up. "Almost a full moon tonight."

Major Darlain was appalled by her new, still un-tested in combat, pilot absentmindedness. "What the hell does the moon have to do with anything!?!"

"Don't yell I'm right here." Tom said as he turned off the lights. "And the full moon has a lot to do with a lot of things."

A moment passed. Major Darlain was confused. And when Tom confused, embarrassed, or showed her up Major Darlain got angry. "What the hell did you turn the lights off for damn it! Put them on now!"

"Find my command wolf from here and I'll do it."

"How stupid are you?" Major Darlain said turning around, "You're command wolf is right th-! Where is that zoid!!!?" Where the command had been there now was nothing.

"The new paint job helped with this. I also added in special a special night stealth system. Can make this zoid physically invisible at night. It's already invisible to most radar in part due to the armor, part to the paint, part to being land based. What will really scare you is this."

Then the one hole in the ceiling designed for aerial zoids opened up. The moon was right above it and it shone on the spot where the command wolf had been. The zoid still wasn't there. "Don't blink." Came a dark sounding voice from where Tom had been. The command wolf then appeared. Only it was glowing black, glowing and emitting some aura like smoke.

"HOLY CRAP!" Swore, shouted, and jumped Major Darlain.

"Nice trick eh? It's more than you're average glow in the dark paint. Should give me quite the reputation. They called me the black dragon in the zoid league. I'm not sure what I'll be called by the enemy forces but it will most definitely have something to do with darkness." A glint of a smile from a now invisible Tom scared major Darlain some more. Then the smile emitted the same black glow that the zoid did.

"_Is this the man that 'she' warned me about. The man the wielded the powers of hellfire and calls darkness his ally. Can I trust him at all?_" Major Darlain thoughts went heard only to her, but still the lights turned back on and the hatch closed, as if Tom could sense the fear the Major's thoughts carried. "Reputation, isn't that a bad thing?" The major still seemed to shiver in her voice.

"It can be. But I would like to think that it were not. Now I would like all the records you have of the six zabats appearing on radar. Also, if you have them, the radar reports of the two zoids you lost when they encountered the zabats. Every time if they encountered them more than once. If you don't have them then I would like the location where the zoids were shot down."

"Huh?" Major Darlain was confused.

"Everything is ready. I would like to find those zoids before they know that we know where they are."

-The next day-

On a mess hall table a map was laid out. The map showed the area to the north sixty miles, thirty miles further than the radar showed. It had topography and towns on it. Radar patterns of the six zoids were laid over the map. Also the radar reports of the two shot down peteras and their final crash site was marked on the map. Most of the base was present. The major was moving between the map and the lookout tower. Chef Perrone was in the kitchen, but that was a few feet away. Oliver, John and Devon were there looking things over, offering their theories. Various locations were pointed at, but most of them fell within a single valley. The valley was wide and deep. They could hide in one of the valley's many crevices. It seemed ideal. Also it was an excellent ambush site. No-one would expect it.

"Alright our stuff is ready, john and I will embark ASAP." Tom looked around at mostly concerned faces, and one semi-eager one. He didn't seem worried himself but no-one knew why he was so confident. "Don't worry." He added as a footnote. "I have another ace up my sleeve."

Later on Tom and john were well on their way as the night fell. John yawned he asked, "When do you plan to stop?"

"At the rate we're going… Not for three more hours or so. I want to stop in specific locations, not by time."

"Really. How many stops will we be making?" John seemed semi-irritated.

"Including this, two. Then we stay at the second one until three days of waiting has passed and then we return on exactly the same route. Save probably at a higher speed."

"Why not go faster now?" John muttered as he looked at the schematics of the slightly improvised booster rockets that were attached. "It'll be cool enough for a couple minute burst even if you lacked a cooling system."

"Good point. And they would be nowhere near here. Well then boosters it is." Tom revealed a wheel on his controls and moved it the slightest amount. The command wolfs speed increased greatly. John was not ready for the actual speed increase.

"Going a little fast aren't we?" John got out once he reached the same speed as the zoid.

"Hardly, this is just enough to get us there in around two hours. I could get us there at top speed in… eh, about forty five minutes, maybe an hour since it ain't flat, if I really want to test the limit. But then we'd go over 150 miles an hour. And if you can barely tackle this I doubt you'd handle that." (Actually the calculations say that the command wolf is doing somewhere between 55 and 65 mph. now)

"I guess. Well um then tell me when we arrive." John yawned a little yawn. "I won't be asleep by definition, but I'll be too dazed to realize we arrived."

When they arrived John found it was a cave that they were staying in. Actually a tunnel was what Tom had told him, 'so that they could escape if pursued'. However once inside with the command wolf's stealth system on and the zoid and pilots a few hundred feet in the cave the only worry was that someone was using the cave. The peaceful night with watches by both Tom and John showed there were no enemies inside.

The next day the command wolf started at high speed. Fully visible upon reaching the top of the plateaus. However the command wolf slowed down after a while, and once the boosters were dead the stealth system went back on.

"Why did you slow down?" John asked after noting that the command wolf was not even going at a full run.

"Because, dust with no source is just as suspicious if not more suspicious than dust with a source. At this speed there may be dust but not enough for the zabats to see even at the closest they've ever been." Tom had barely moved his grip on the controls since starting the day. And he really sounded bored an uninterested.

"Well you sound excited."

"Why should I sound excited. We'll be stuck in this zoid until early tonight at the earliest. Then we'll wait up to three days in the little niche that we'll be hiding in and then we'll go back." A sigh was heard. "That's army life for ya'."

Any further attempts at conversation for the day were stifled before they began. That night they arrived at a small opening in the side of a rock wall. The zoid was backed in a ways and then the two began the waiting process. The whole first day passed by with the zoid invisible at all times. And then the night came. Most of it had gone by, and john and Tom were both awake an hour before sunrise Tom near the cockpit, John on the Zoids back.

"You know, this is real boring. I mean we have almost no chance of getting to see any action here." Tom grunted. "I mean if they passed us by and we missed them somehow they would never find us unless they had real good eyesight and noticed two guys sitting on nothing." Again Tom grunted. "Hey! Is it possible that we did miss them?" Tom grunted more of a no grunt. "Ah so you didn't sleep your watch either. Well that's that then." John settled against the invisible command wolf gun base when the alert monitor beeped and flashed. "The alert monitor!?!" True to the name john was now on alert.

"Yeah radar shows six zoid sized objects on radar. They're flying low. Must be aiming to hit somewhere at dawn. But they'll be shot down before that happens." A sadistic grin came to Tom's face. "Let's get ready to shoot them down."

When the zabats passed by john was ready on the missile pods in the turret. Tom had the machine gun sights in line with the zabats altitude. "I get the first two you get the second two. Got it?" John was now the one to grunt. "Good."

A minute or two passed by. Then the first one came into view. Tom pressed his trigger and let loose hundreds of bullets from two machine guns at the two front zoids. They just impacted when pre-programmed micro missiles went streaming into the hostile zoids. Hitting and almost completely dissolving one zoid and slightly damaging the other due to an evasive maneuver on its part.

"Crap I missed!" John swore even as he programmed the next two zabats in his targeting system.

"Miss? You got them both that counts as two hits in my books. Anyway now the second one is damaged so he'll be easy." Tom sent his zoid out of the cave and quickly fired off a few second burst at the injured zabat. "I got him. Are the other programmed in?" Tom had begun moving upwards to the top of the mesa.

"Yeah, want me to fire?"

"Only the forward missile pods. I'm not sure if you'd hit them no matter how many missiles you use at this range." The zabats were very far away. And the pilots had seemed to react very quickly once the first barrage had gone off. Although Tom had ignored them then, radar showed that fact well enough. Tom stopped the zoid on a mini plateau and turned it to face the two circling zabats. "Blast em'."

"Eat this!" John pressed the red trigger button and over 100 micro missiles flew towards the circling zabats. Quickly turning to face the missiles the zabats let their guns blast and a large percentage of them were shot down. Whatever was left the two zoids evaded easily. "No damn it!" John swore as the command wolf boosted its way uphill, the whole time firing off rounds at the pursuing aerial zoids. "I really screwed it up didn't I?" John sighed. "We're screwed now aren't we?"

Tom chuckled. "My job is to take all screw up's and turn them to our advantage."

"How do you turn _this_ to our advantage?" John muttered even as he began to lock on the targeting system once more.

"By winning." Tom's voice had become deep and barely seemed to be Tom's voice at all. The zabats began to fire. The command wolf nimbly dodged each and every shot. "I'll tell you when to fire the missiles. Do not think of pressing the button until then." John froze in his position watching as the command wolf would leap out of the way on incoming fire.

Then the zabats used their missiles. Each fired off all four of their missiles and aimed them right for the dusty red hot, but otherwise invisible, command wolf. "Fire the missiles now!!!" One button released hundreds of micro missiles. The zabats missiles, just out of their firing slots were shot down, and one zabat was utterly turned into nothingness.

"Wow you've got good timing." John said as he stared at the screen full of smoke.

"Good, now you shoot the last zabat. Try and hit it if you can." Tom switched the gun controls to the rear seat from where he was and then really began to move the zoid.

John let out short machine gun burst from time to time, but the pilot easily evaded each burst with the slightest disruption to the action the zoid had been engaged in, usually firing off its guns. "Damn, I can't hit that guy." John was looking at screen that split the cabin in two for the time being. "He must be an ace at least if he's this good."

"An ace huh?" Tom grunted as he made an especially hard turn to the left. "Well we've got five kills already. That makes us aces correct?"

John smirked, "If we get back to base they'll never believe it."

"We'll get back." Was Tom's reply. Then Tom began maneuvering more intricate and fanciful maneuvers, while the command wolf dodged the fire on a tighter and tighter line.

A few minutes passed, and then john looked at where the command wolf was headed. "WHAT!!! You're headed right to a cliff you know!" John leant back in his seat, ignoring his firing duties. He looked around the cockpit in fear when he noticed that his jet monitor read zero boosters out put. "Why are you going so slowly! He'll be right on top of us!" Then he noticed the stealth system was off. And that the 'special effects' armor was off as well. "No stealth, are you out of your mind!!!" More and more bullets streaked past, closer and closer to the zoid. The zabat stopped firing long enough to end up right above and behind Tom's command wolf. "God, he's insane. Tom's going to kill me and him. He's got the stealth and the boosters off. He's not even telling me to fire." John then began to pray and begin something along the lines of repentance.

"Stop worrying crybaby." Tom chuckled out as he pushed the stealth button. "I've got a plan."

It must have been a strange sight for the zabat pilot. He thought that the stealth system was detectable. He had been doing so before when the zoid was invisible, and now that it was visible shooting the thing was even easier. But once it turned invisible completely, even the dust was gone, and there was no reading, despite having been maybe eighty feet behind the zoid, he was confused. Stopping in flight he looked around. There were some prints, but they ended at a cliff. There was one small little plateau in the middle between two cliff's. So that was the only place the command wolf could have been. Trying to level up with so he could hit the little spit of land in between the two cliffs Tom finished his plan.

Having long since turned around to face where he had come from Tom sat fingers ready to press a button and move a knob. First he moved the booster know to the max, rocketing forwards. Then he turned off the stealth, and due to the full moon low in the horizon the shadowy glow surrounded the command wolf. It leapt, mouth open. "DIE!!!" Tom shouted as loud as he could. The zabat and command wolf met, the command wolf bit down on the zabats wing and sent the whole zoid flying in the opposite direction it had been going. Then the command wolf savagely tore the zabat apart with its mouth and claws. When it was done, both wings, and the head, had been ripped off. Then at last sunrise arrived. A green command wolf quickly turned and went at its fastest back to its home.

-End-

All right, chapter one is done. It's on time too!

My calculations say the distance is 112 miles. Based of 150 mph for 45 minutes on a perfect straight run. 150 miles in an hour 112 miles in 45 minutes. So to arrive in two hours would put them at 56, but since the land ain't flat they're going a little faster.


	2. Chapter 2

-Rebirth of the Guardians – the long awaited sequel to chapter 1

Chapter 2 – The war for the gale stone

-Disclaimer- this is my own 'history' of the zoids continent, Tom and Reddy are my characters and the long awaited sequel/prequel are mine. Feel free to take the 'history' that I use without directly crediting me, but I would like to be asked about the characters.

The disclaimer is pretty much the same as last time. (Actually copied from the last chapter in its entirety, I'm lazy)

Oh as an aside I plan to add little 'historical' tidbits at the end and/or beginning of each chapter to help provide context.

-Begin-

A group of eighteen land based zoids crawled uneasily forwards. Two gustavs at the center with some cargo on them and one black reddler set the pace for the group. That and they were waiting for the recon reddler to return and give a report on whether any enemies were ahead. They were in the territory of the 'ghost fox' and official reports had the ghost fox taking out groups of fifteen zoids on multiple occasions. He was the single most wanted zoid/pilot on the hit list of any faction in the war not allied with the guardian force.

The commander of the squad was not one who was afraid of a ghost of any sort, ignoring the blatantly obvious allegiance of this one.& He knew who in the squad was afraid of this mystery command wolf for being a ghost however. And with all the constant tension he had to relax his guys. It was time to try and make a joke or two. "Hey Kepler!" Kepler being the soldiers name.

"Yes serge?"

"I heard that you're the type who's afraid of ghosts." There was no response. "That was a question!" The sergeant barked.

"Sorry sir. Well sir, I am a believer in the supernatural."

"Tell me were you afraid of the boogey man, the monster in the closet or any of that when you were a kid."

"Well, sir. Honestly that's private."

"Kepler, be honest I was too at a young age."

"Yes sir."

"Now you got over your fear, correct, even though you may think any of those could be real to some extent."

"Yes."

"So isn't this 'ghost fox' just a scaled up boogey man?"

"Sir?"

"Answer me kepler."

"Sir, yes sir!"

"Aren't we all beyond being afraid of the boogey man at our age's men?" Several men shouted over the inter com. Two women grunted. "And ladies." The women still did little.

-Meanwhile a ways away-

"Do you guys hear what this guy is saying?" Tom said as he turned up his radio volume as the sergeant went into more stuff about the boogey man and whatnot. "What a load of stupid crap. The boogey man. Silves can you handle being put at that level?"

"Hardly, unless I was drunk."

"You're too young to get drunk legally."

"More my case."

"Touché. Well dual under agedness aside shall we ambush em'?" Tom looked back at the supporting group of zoids he had gotten. Two maximum arms gunsnipers. Two light arms gunsnipers an iron Kong, a peteras, four command wolfs and four cannon tortoises. Receiving a general yes Tom grinned, "This'll be a helluva lotta fun." As he quickly set off into the lowlands and the other zoids went to the highlands.

-Meanwhile with the other zoid convoy-

Having gotten stuck in a canyon was not an ideal situation for the raid leader. He had been waiting for the recon that still had yet to come. The zoid being out was fine. But not reporting in was bad. Finally when they had a bottleneck pass at their rear the black reddler returned. His message was coming in garbled. "Zoid…ah… be…ful…Wha…doing…fools!!!" Then the black reddler was shot down. It careened into the group. Then a green command wolf came barreling down the canyon.

"YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" Was the solitary cry that could be heard as the entire convoy stopped dead. Then the Gatling gun on the command wolfs back began to turn.

"He's going to fire blast him!!!" The sergeant commanded as he pressed the trigger himself. The Gatling guns bullet hail took out the sergeant's iron Kong first.

"It's the ghost fox!" Came the cry from Kepler. He was the only other one to who focused effort was applied in the targeting of. His gunsniper quickly was riddled with bullets. Both Kepler and the Sergeant were killed in the hail of fire.

Then the Gatling gun began to move from side to side even as the command wolf dodged the fire that was blasted at him. Just before the command wolf went straight down the center of the formation it turned on its boosters managing to avoid the enemy fire. Then the zoid went through the bottleneck and kept on going for a few hundred meters until sliding to a stop.

The generally beaten convoy stayed still, guns trained on the bottleneck in the canyon. When several minutes passed and no blur passed by spewing bullets someone took control. "I want a report of the injured and dead pilots and the damaged zoids and rough repair status. I'll get out and check on the command wolf, I want verbal reports to me." The man got out. He went to the bottleneck and looked out. When he saw the distance he breathed a sigh of relief. "Phew, he could never hit me from there. But I wonder why he stopped."

-Meanwhile-

Tom perked up slightly from an extreme slouch. "It looks like some guys are moving. Should I shoot at them?" Tom looked back over his shoulder at john who now was watching red blips on a digital map of the area.

"At this distance, I doubt even you could make it."

"Damn. You're right… Again… And I'm the one with the good track record." Tom slouched. "How long is it now?"

"I said fifteen minutes three minutes ago take a guess."

"Eighteen?"

"No."

"Damn." Tom looked at the bottleneck ready to fire if anything big moved.

Meanwhile the guy in command had the reports. "This is not good. Five pilots dead. Eight zoids damaged beyond immediate repair. Five with cockpits gone entirely. Almost all of us are damaged in some sense. And the serge is dead too. I think once that zoid goes we'll have to turn back. Men start repairing what's repairable. Focus on the legs we need to get away fast once that guy leaves." That was the last thing the guys heard before the cannon tortoise shells whistled into the canyon.

The ambush was a complete success. No-one was left alive. The zoids were annihilated. Only the gojulas's and one reddler survived.

Tom was the first on site after the fact. "This is a mess." Tom sighed. Over the radio that was what he said, his thoughts were far more sympathetic however. _Poor guys, never saw any of it coming._ "Idiots. A raid force is small and speedy not big and cumbersome." Tom scanned the wreckage. "Hey John, does that reddler look serviceable." Tom then heard the seal on the canopy release. John got out and ran towards the reddler.

"Wow." Was the first thing said by john's mouth. "I tell you this must be god's handiwork. This zoid is in the very middle of it all and doesn't have a single scratch. Either this zoid is blessed or it has the devils luck."

Tom looked at the black reddler. It was a decent zoid all in all. The fact that the paint wasn't even scratched was a bonus, although it probably would have to be re-painted to the green of the command wolf. "We'll have to see if we can get it. Even my command wolf can't go forever."

"You don't mean you think that you actually might get damaged at some point do ya?" John said with a sarcastic tone as he began a climb to the cockpit.

"That's hardly the case. I just think my command wolf may get some wear and tear eventually that's all." Tom got out himself as he manually checked for ids. The least favorite aspect of his working in a group, and one of the key reasons he tried to avoid it, was trying to find papers for the dead. Not that it was likely to find any papers in this mess. Even the small bit's of the gojulas's canopy was damaged from the explosions. He scanned visually walking around trying to identify something. Meanwhile John had hooked up a small device to the computer of the black reddler.

"The third strike battalion…" He trailed thinking of the unit list that he had in his mind. "Never heard of it." John muttered as he began to cross reference it with known data from the Guardian force mainframe. "Seems to be a heavy strike task force primarily deployed into larger battles. The leader has been in the group since day one, he has almost a 50/50 win loss record." I'll have to send the data over once we get a transmitter better than the one that your command wolf has over there." As if on cue the iron Kong dropped down into the valley. "And here it is. Just need the last little bits of data and… Done."

Meanwhile Tom had actually located some papers, along with a dead body, but he ignored that as best he could for the time being. Meanwhile he was reading the papers. Not skipping a single word. He marked out the identification parts and placed papers for the two closest dead people at his left. But he became steadily absorbed in the papers as he came to the task force's mission.

-Log/Mission creation-

-To be sealed until the arrival at strategic point theta-

Members of the third strike battalion, it has come to the attention of the Zenebas scientists and the chancellor that in order to revive the 'ultimatum' a few key items are required. A majority of these items are in our control already or have a status unknown, but some lay outside our bounds, largely in the helic republic and the Guylos Empire. You are on a task to retrieve the Gael stone in the national museum of the northern Guylos Empire. This mission is of the utmost importance and secrecy. Other than the chancellor and a few key persons, no-one knows who has gone to retrieve the Gael stone, or where it is, and fewer know of its imminent retrieval. You will receive no support in this mission. You must complete this in order to win the war for Zenebas.

-End mission statement- (That was pretty important to the plot)

Included in the package was a layout of the city. The assumed guard force for the city, high by a fair amount, as well as museum plans. Also in the mission statement bundle was Tom's favorite set of papers, the blacklist. A list of the most wanted zoids and zoid pilots for each faction, as well as overall. This particular list had black lists for every area of the Guardian force's northern war front. Tom was pleased to find his name showing up with a 2 chance of arrival at the northern border of no-mans land, over 320 kilometers from his home base.

Once all the official stuff was done Tom got down to the matter of the mission and trying to steal the gale stone. "You see, I think that if they want it this badly we need to protect it."

The group's top ranker seemed to think it over. Tom knew the guy was not a big fan of the ghost fox and its reputation, and influence, but he also knew the man had been a Guylos soldier. Hopefully duty would outweigh pride, and jealously of not actually being allowed to make the plan. "You know I see what you're saying." Tom's face brightened. "And that's why we need our very best to be there. This is why I'll send you." Tom then slackened and threw his head back face looking at the sky.

After a few moments of walking Tom looked at the man, "Alright then, I'll go tell the boss-man about all this for you, you are supposed to deal with the actual mission yourself." Tom ran off. The man felt superior judging by his stature and satisfied grunt. Tom just had the devils grin on his face.

-Later-

"Yes I thought it was such a good idea that I would send the entire troop, and several other Guylos units."

The comm.-link blinked out. Tom grinned as the general sat and then slumped his head into his lap. After a few minutes of not moving Tom looked at the guy. He seemed to be in a death slump. "Maybe the shock killed him." Tom muttered to himself as he got down and felt around the neck for a pulse. A few moments pause, Tom mouthed numbers to himself, "Nope just a temporary shock, he's recovering, and by his pulse he's either nervous or pissed off about the matter."

The man finally slowly rose up. He shook himself out and then lowered a glare at the man responsible for this all. "WHAT THE HELL DID YOU TELL HIM!!!?"

"Just that if this was the force they would send that it would need more than just my humble protection. That and you were perfect in coordinating the troop's movements. I guess he chose you too. What sucks is that I couldn't get out of it. Well John will be going back to base though, I guess that'll do."

"So I'm stuck with you until they get someone better in the city."

"Looks like it. Although they've got a big military force on the way. Seems to be several hundred of those little caterpillars. The republic also already has a small force there too." Tom started fiddling with some loose buttons on his uniform.

"So how long do we have to wait?"

"Probably longer than we would have been together had you just let this run its normal course."

"Why did you have to mess it up for me, I had plans!!!"

Tom stopped fiddling. He looked away from the button and at the man who had been talking. "YOU SELFISH BASTARD! You think I didn't have plans. The base was about to be transferred up to the new northern border. With me at the very front of the war virtually no-one would dare try to sneak by anywhere within 30 kilometers of my base unless they had a massive army ready to try and pierce the front. That would have been huge for the war, 30 kilometers almost enemy free!!! YOU SELFISH BASTARD!!!" Tom shouted one last time. "Ugh, now they'll have replacements moving with the base instead of me. This sucks." Tom smacked his face with his hand. "This ought to be fun…" Tom still planned on making the best of a bad situation however, and this was going to be an easy situation to get out of.

-Some time later in the museum town-

The Guardian Force was in this little city en-masse. Well to be most accurate they were on the outside of it. The Guylos forces were arrayed at various locations within the city itself. The republic had a base just a ways north of the town, and thus it was the point closest to the battle front, and thus it was the point where an attack was most likely to be first detected.

Tom was sitting in a chair looking at all the various complex high quality, fancy, scientific, accurate, useful yet useless, instruments. Commenting on the dual purpose and pointlessness of the room he was in for the thousandth time he sighed, "This place would be useful and had detected dozens of enemy attacks if the war front was only on the other side of the hills."

"But it's not and you're here so get used to it!!!" A Guylos tecchie who operated the Guylos owned base got up and shouted at Tom like the sequence always played out. Tom responded with a groan everyone but that one shouting tecchie knew the pattern already. That one tecchie seemed quite oblivious.

Tom wondered. Would the Zenebas come for the gale stone with an invasion force, or just some expert thieves? The latter he could do little about, but the people who could do something were quite capable. Tom recalled with a grin as he had seen the non-inept guards first hand and had been found glad that he was not the only super skilled guy on his side, like it would have been in a book, or cartoon, or an internet fandom, yeah especially one of those.

He had been thinking about it the entire time since he had been re-assigned. What would Zenebas do? The medium speedy strike was impossible, and a one to three zoid taskforce was less likely and still harder than the medium force even if each pilot was twice as good as Tom would ever be. Fact was there were over 800 zoids here, true many were little more than cannon fodder with peashooters attached but more than half actually were good. Or at least decent. So that left either a group of thieves to sneak in as refugees/tourists/nobody's or a massive assault force to go down a very precarious line between super bases with that same squad of thieves among them. Or it could be a trap, why would anyone really send in a group of zoids the size of the first one and expect to get results too. Well if they never expected to actually get the gale stone and only distract a large force they had done it. Now all they had to do was actually do something. There were no unusual reports from anywhere about anything. And that left the people guarding with nothing to do. Himself included. "Don't get me wrong." Tom said to no-one as he went to a laser scope and began looking around. "I don't mind doing nothing, but after 12 days it gets rather repetitive." Tom looked around; these scopes were just there to deal with doubting Thomases when the need to show someone something obvious for themselves arose. And they were all linked up to various monitors. But Tom liked to live up to his namesake and doubt that nothing was going on. The longer he was here the harder he had to convince himself to believing it. "Doubting Thomas. John chapter twenty verses twenty four through twenty nine. 'Jesus saith unto him, Thomas, because thou hast seen Me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed.' I'm not religious but…" Tom finally stopped looking through the laser scope and used his own eyes. "I am the believer of the doubter in this case?" Tom then shook his head. Every day since he had come here he did that. He guessed it was because of his choice of research. Or maybe he was just philosophical, but either way it was weird, it was annoying, and it was behind him now. He was someone else. "I am not the man who I was born." He thought about who he is to the world and who he was to himself. They were very similar. "Although little _has_ changed other than my last name." He laughed very loudly. With who he had been to the world it was no surprise.

-Later-

It was very late that Tom awoke to the blaring siren. "Warning enemy attack, enemy attack. All units scramble, enemy to the north." It was an emotionless voice that spoke. But that lack of emotion was nothing major compared to the four red lights and blaring siren and alarms that went off for an attack of the scale that Tom was guessing at. And him with only a standard command wolf's sniper rifle. No a modified one, double barreled. Well he probably should use it now.

When Tom got out he noted that the moon was up and that it was lighting the battlefield very excellently. The night attack idea had not been perfect, but there was doubt as to whether every zoid on the field had night vision. Tom grinned; his did. Combined with his stealth and the reputation of the ghost fox and that his command wolf that would randomly appear glowing black and ripping Zenebas zoids to shreds and be recognized by helic, Guylos, and guardian force alike were all bonuses. He then got down the aforementioned matter of ripping Zenebas zoids to shreds.

In a short lull where Tom had pulled back to reload his weapons Tom met the man who had tried to shove Tom to this out of the way place. His iron Kong entered shortly after his, fist's badly dented. The small gun on the wrist of the zoids battered beyond use. But the rest of the zoid was in a fairly decent state. Easily on par with the command wolf for condition. Tom had a feeling the guy did well. That was good, at least the guy was whole heartedly participating the battle. And him doing a good job was a bonus still. Tom's guess to the location of the pilot was him being in the cockpit trying to figure his kills out thus far by reviewing battle footage. Tom gave a slight start when he figured he should do the same. It was going to take a while for him to reload. Already the iron Kong was half re-armed. Tom was at a third. Just then a human voice broke out over the intercom. "There is a report that the gale stone has been stolen. Also a group of lighting saikes and hellcats have penetrated the lines. We need all available men to prevent the escape of the thieves especially if they are Zenebas allies."

Shouts of, "Oh hell no!" and, "Sonofa bitch!" As well of those far more profane and some more profane and longer lasting.

Tom ran over to the iron Kong and tapped on the canopy. Hopefully the guy wasn't to proud, or mad, he wasn't sure which he was worried more about. "Thirty two, at fifty five minutes." Tom heard before the man opened his canopy. "Oh it's you."  
Tom ignored the comment, his position of hanging onto the edge of an iron Kong's cockpit with one hand, hanging freely out into space more than a few feet off the ground kept body motion to a minimum. "Hear the announcement?"

"Of course, are you stupid?"

"I'm smart enough. But I'm not psychic. I'm gonna see if I can get the guys to display the location of the zoids on our maps and were going to team up."

"Alright."

"Now listen here!" Tom blinked, his shock and slight body movement caused him to slip he quickly re-attached himself. "You agreed? That was fast."

"Yes, I admit that I may not like you, but the fact is if Zenebas set up an assault this large to let only a small group of zoids get though to the city, all very capable escape zoids, I think it's worth taking care of."

"Good, since my zoid is faster I'll be heading towards the museum. You'll take the main avenue, try to cut off as many as possible from there. I'll try to push them towards you."

"What about the Hellcats?"

"The republic forces will arrive soon, they were to be split between city duty and front line duty. Also there are a fair number of Guylos zoids about, they should be able to handle a few of the zoids in the city for us."

"Alright, I'm going now since I'm done."

"I'll be joining you soon." Tom jumped down from the cockpit and actually landed on the catwalk, much to the amazement of the tech guy at the end computer terminal. Tom walked to him, "Put the location of the zoids that broke through onto that iron Kong and my command wolf!" Tom pointed at the two zoids, despite them being the only ones in the hangar. The man nodded and Tom went off to prepare. "Stop reloading, I've got enough bullets to deal with the zoids in the city." Tom went up in the cockpit pushed the startup buttons and got his command wolf moving. As he came out he encountered two gojulas's closing in on the base, and closing in by his standards meant that they were still miles away. With the skill of a multiple ace pilot he took out each gojulas with one shot to the cockpit and kept on moving around the base. He looked at his ammo supply. It was currently at 64 shots. Not enough to charge into battle _and_ chase after eight lightning saix and twelve hellcats but enough to do it in reverse order. He then activated the boosters on his command wolf and went off to rescue the city.

His arrival in the city saw it full of Guylos soldiers leading mass evacuations. Currently, based on the plan Tom had helped to form, the citizens would be moved to the far side of the city, then when all citizens were moved the transport units that would not participate in battle would prepare to move out of the city if need be. Currently they were at a point where enough zoids could be recalled to provide guard until the people were safe. But how long those figures would last was anybodies guess. Tom prayed the republic forces would arrive soon, or else the only zoids that could move people would be a bunch of gustavs that couldn't defend themselves. Nor the people riding on, in or behind them.

Tom finally slowed his pace when he came across one of these with a zoid signal nearby. He had to warn the pilot at least. He opened a channel. "Gustav pilot, stay where you are, there is a zoid around the next corner. If you go to far forwards I have little doubt you will be shot at. I do not want you to endanger civilians." Tom looked, the gustav was not going anywhere fast, and while the zoid was actually only around the next corner the next corner was probably thirty minutes away at eh walking pace the gustav followed. Still civilians were walking along side of the gustav. Children and the elderly were actually on the two trailers behind the zoid. Some military jeeps with guns on top were along side the group. Although at least one civilian was manning a machine gun as far as Tom could tell. Then they all stopped moving. Tom kept on going at the pace the gustav had set but his head turned. Then he realized the pilot had been talking.

"…and thanks again for the advice, but tell us as soon as you are done because I need to get people on the other side of the city."

Tom saluted out of cockpit to the pilot and moved towards the next corner at a faster pace. He knew that it was a confirmed enemy. Which meant Tom was either facing an un-stealth hellcat or a lighting saix. Tom prayed for the former but prepared for the latter.

Tom turned the corner and the zoid was not there. Tom ran his best scanning devices to see if the hellcat that he assumed was there was running stealth, but along the avenue he got nothing. There was a strange signal behind two different buildings, one of which was right on the zoids last known location. Then Tom took aim at the spot he figured where the zoid was. Suddenly the building had a hole in it. "Shit I'm not cloaked!" Tom swore as he glanced at the radio panel to discover no channels were open save one to an iron Kong, and that pilot had heard worse language.

In an instant Tom's right and left hands turned black and emitted a strange glow. Then black flames surrounded the zoid core and, more visibly, the command wolfs legs. In the time Tom had discovered he was not cloaked he was out of the way of the shell and cloaked. There was no sign of him to the eye, he had just vanished. Suddenly the other spot where an anomaly had occurred began firing shells, like the point where the zoid was. They were in the vicinity of where the command wolf's upward and slight leftward moment would have most likely taken him.

The two pilots opened a channel between themselves, "Dude did you see that?"

"Yeah, those flames, how did he dodge our shots?"

"Dude do you know about the matrix movies?"

"The earth ones?"

"Yeah, the main character dodged bullets. But the fact is he moved just like that guy."

"You mean?"

"That guy might be Keanu Reeves!"

"Are you high?"

Before the pilot with the knowledge of the matrix had a chance to respond he was shot. The bullet ripping on the back mounted cannons on the zoid. A second shot destroyed the guns between the zoids front legs. A third hit the rear right leg, though that one really wasn't necessary. A fourth went right through the actual hole the other hellcat had made with its own shot and hit the rear of the cockpit and nearly killed the pilot and simultaneously caused a command system freeze. Although the half dead pilot was the worse of the two problems by far.

Toms command wolf re-appeared with one barrel right in the hole that the hellcat had made. In the opposite direction that he had disappeared from. The black flames were gone. But the zoid seemed repaired of all previous damages. "Gustav pilot, it's clear for you to move." Tom looked, there had been only one enemy zoid ever reported in this sector of the city. But there had been two. Well if he worried to much he would never get rid of the zoids he knew were there. So we went on to the next closest zoid with the intent of herding those remaining.

Encountering a Hellcat two blocks up he took it out as quickly as he could and then moved to the next signal, at the time the one closet to the museum.

When he saw the zoid he was no happy camper. "Crap a lightning saix!" He swore when the saix accelerated dead at him. "Dear god!" He grinned inwardly as he backed up slightly getting himself as close to the houses as he felt safe. A pout came on his face as he fired shots at the pilot. Who 'miraged' out of the way of the shots. As to say he used his speed to evade so that it looked like he was simply never there when he took the shot.

After the third shot Tom shouted, "How long is this avenue!" Holding his fire he simply braced himself for the command he was hoping would work. With a quick prayer for his success he jumped up and forwards with his zoid with the lighting saix no further than a couple dozen meters away. While Tom's command wolf got away with a few scratches on his claws the lightening saix hit the steel beamed building. Which then collapsed on him and crushed him utterly. "That's four down. If four hellcats weren't in stealth, or someone didn't manage to equip a stealth system to a hellcat then we should be able to handle whatever is left." He checked that his channel with the iron Kong was open. "Hey you read?"

"Yeah."

"I got me four Zoids how about you?"

"One lighting saix one hellcat. A few Zoids that got through the front."

"Damn is it that bad?"

"Yes it is."

Tom glanced at his map. "I see one zoid going your way, most likely a lightening Saix. There's another that's long gone, at least until it hits the helic reinforcements from the east. In… Now." A red dot disappeared. "The other is headed towards the guylos backup and it should go bye-bye there. I'm gonna go back to the front and you can to."

"I hardly need you're permission to return to the front, I outrank you!"

"Fair enough I don't really care if you get my permission or not, I'm going either way." Tom jetted off towards the battlefront. He had plans to rip every enemy he saw to shreds.

-Historical war records of the battle of Gael-

The battle proved to be a long all night battle. It was the largest engagement of the whole war that was not in the 'final stage' as it involved over 1,000 units. It was the largest struggle that occurred behind the main front for the whole of the war. The fact that an enemy force of that size was able to penetrate also caused the various military forces to look into the appropriate military commanders to see whether or not sabotage was evident.

Also however there was a, then unknown, but none the less much larger repercussion for the battle.

At the time the Gael stone was thought to be safe and in the city museum. However the stone was later discovered to have been smuggled out of the city and brought to Zenebas hands by one means or another. This particular element would have repercussions un-believable by any of the two non-Zenebas allied forces when the power of the Gael stone, and various other items, were brought to bear.

-Post-war historical paper on the 'ghost fox' of Gael-

People criticize the Ghost fox, Thomas, for not having seen through the intentions of Zenebas. Others criticize him for being unable to convince the brass to investigate into the events mentioned. On the first my counter stands as hindsight is 20/20, no-one could have know what was coming. On the second I have two points, not until the final push this Thomas gain sufficient rank and influence to affect the matters of management in any way shape or form. And second, the affairs of the letter were already being looked into, at the time with top quality intelligence, why would the man who was more preoccupied with holding the enemy at the front lines worry about what the top intelligence offices in the dual alliance system were seeing to.

-End-


	3. Chapter 3

-Rebirth of the Guardians – the long awaited sequel to chapter 2

Chapter 3 – The new base the new people

Well here's chapter three, no disclaimer no nothing.

-Ahem- DECEMBER FIFTH INTERNATIONAL DAY OF THE NINJA, CELEBRATE IT

Blunt, but exactly what I plan to do. Now you should too.

-Begin-

When he arrived at his new encampment, well within enemy territory, tom, as a general rule, got along well with the people. Save for his overwhelming, well his overwhelming-ness for lack of a better word. The one exception to this was the apprentice of Tom's soon to be friendly rival Fred smith, Jaina. God he made that poor girls life hell.

-Excerpt from interview with John Reynolds about Tom-

The return to the front was not a stressful thing for the ghost fox. Being an elite warrior with well over two dozen kills in solo situations, and several more in group scenarios, not including the headache of the battle of Gael, as the media was calling it, Thomas Reynolds stressed not over combat. So his return to a post in fact ahead of the main front line was at worst something that excited him. He prayed to have something to do in his life.

Luck handed him a scenario very rapidly. Almost the moment of his return.

Having just arrived in the hangar Tom was re-acquainting himself with Oliver, Perrone, and John and mocking the major in charge Relena. "Oy, remember back at day 1. Oh god that was great!" Tom said with a thick fake odd accent. "Man we put the shrimp on the Barbie that time eh fellas?" (Yeah it's supposed to be the worst Australian accent you've read all your life, if you tell me something about insulting Australians I could care less, this statement was hardly meant to flatter them either, it was to make Tom look like a nut job) (Screw observations, I'll point it out on my own!) Then he was slapped. As was to be expected considering what happened on that first day.

Then the two new pilots came. On an aerial triple ace, in the service for several years, Fred smith was the type of legend Tom would become if the war lasted another six months. He was a man in his later thirties who piloted a storm sworder. His young female apprentice, Jaina, was the best looking female in the complex, slightly more skilled than a pilot fresh out of training; however most of that skill was in her incredible ability to withstand extreme g-forces. Having survived a fall that had her at 15g's without blacking out. That was her main skill.

The older Fred had an average crop of brown hair as was normal for men to have. He wore the standards uniform and his tallish relatively well built figure suited the uniform he was given.

The young Jaina, fulfilling whatever character stereotype I know I designed her in mind with, was very young, actually having joined the army at 17 by some strange twist, and was just now 18. Her bust was very large and every single curve of her body made men stare, save tom who lacked romantic feelings, as well as any sort of serious interest in the feminine gender. But that was because he was odd. Admittedly she was a brighter girl, capable of doing the mathematical portion of piloting easily enough. Other than that and the g-force thing, she had no special piloting qualities. Those she was learning from Fred.

"So you're the legendary 'Ghost fox'. You don't look all that special." Smith commented as he looked with disapproving eyes.

"I dunno, I think he's pretty good looking, unlike all the other available guys on this dump." Jaina said with a bubbly little grin. (Yes I know I've created a monster, I did it with this personality in mind, sort of as a comic aspect for me to laugh at if no-one else does)(God what character type is she!?!)

"I mean as a pilot. I really don't care how good looking you think he is."

"Well as a pilot. Hmm…" Jaina walked over to Tom and observed him from all angles she could. "Nope he's got nothing." Then she fell over, a fist attached to an extended arm took up the space where she had been.

"Stupid bitch can't recognize talent." He said in reference to Jaina. "That asshole won't admit to seeing it either." He motioned his thumb at Fred. Tom grumbled, "I guess I have to deal with you for perhaps the whole duration of the war." He grumbled some more, nothing coherent at any rate. "Names so we can get this over with please."

"This 'asshole' is named Fred smith. I suppose you can't recognize talent either."

"That is where you are wrong. I know you're good, I know she can be better." A knowing and feral grin appeared. "Oh what I know."

"I'm Jaina." Said Jaina bouncing back from her fall in a heartbeat.

"Right. So who else is new?" Tom asked his old crew that was present.

"There's another gunner, new tecchie boy and a new mechanic." Oliver said as he went back to whatever task he had been doing when Tom arrived.

"Hey!" Relena shouted, "You people all should have something to do, now go get it done!" She waved them all off. Oliver and john stayed, they didn't have to move to get their stuff done. So did Fred and annoying bubbly girl Jaina, and Major Relena, and Tom.

Tom managed to get out of the way of the crowd and went to his command wolf.

"What are you doing?" Oliver asked.

"I've got a training device; it installs a custom made training program. I want to see how I do against the guardian forces second best pilot."

Much later that same day both pilots got out of their Zoids cockpits exhausted from the five simulation matches. True there had only been five complete ones but those had lasted ten hours in total. Jaina, Oliver, John and the new mechanic were the only other ones in the hangar. "Man." Tom said as he bent his head back with a sigh, "I'd hate to have to face off with you for real no matter what the outcome. God we'd probably both end up dead or crippled."

"I have to admit to being a bad judge of skill. We had three tied matches that each lasted three hours and each of us won and lost a match, in less than eighteen minutes for you."

"Yea, well that's just because you underestimated me the first time. The second match I had to leave the designated battlefield to call it a tie."

"Third and fourth matches we both were dead. Last match I only disabled your Zoid, and in forty two minutes."

"I took longer to beat cause I'm much better at judging skill, you took me for nothing and lost because of it." The two shook. "I'm glad to have you as an ally."

"I hope that we will both learn much from each other."

"So Fred how did you do?" Jaina asked.

"Didn't you just hear us?" Fred said exasperated.

"What?" Jaina asked cupping her hand around her ear.

"I get it." Tom muttered. "Stupid crane, why are they using it now. We had even records what's your name. So deal with it." Tom shouted the last part as loud as he could. Jaina fell over from her standing position at the volume he blasted her with. John, who was passing by looked hard at the fallen over Jaina. "You keep going, I'm not staring."

"That's because you're inhuman." John said as he walked away grumbling.

Fred looked ready to kill like a father would in that situation. Tom just placed a restraining arm in his way. "He's my apprentice, I'll deal with him as I see fit."

"And that is."

"Immediate verbal rebuke, not much more. I leave the worst of it to Relena."

"Not much 'dealing with'." Tom grinned his knowing grin; _Just how much does this damn guy know._ Fred thought,_ I'll say I lost the first match because of and underestimation mostly because of pride, but what I did has beaten Zenebas elite, and other Guardian force elite in practice hundreds of times, he treated it like it was nothing and ripped through me! _"Ah well I shouldn't intervene in someone else's affairs."

"That's fine; I won't pay any attention to your little thing then."

"HEY!" Jaina started but then tom walked off. "And where are you going?" But then the crane started up and he couldn't hear her if he tried, but he didn't want to, so the crane honestly did little.

Upon arriving in the kitchen he saw Relena, who immediately went into discipline mode. "What have you been doing all this time? You have not done any reporting based on your mission nor have you been updated on events!!!"

Tom glanced at her with an almost lusting look. But it carried distaste, disgust and his favorite emotion, disinterest, too. "You mean this?" He said as he turned away and flapped a small packet, "It's all the crap I had to turn in. I was informed of what you had to tell me during some simulations I did."

"And how long did your simulations last?" Relena asked, waiting to hear the absurd response and then call it stupid.

"Read the machine, it can't lie." He threw the simulator installer at Relena, it arched and landed right between her breasts on a lucky, or unlucky, you decide, toss.

"What the hell!?!" She swore as she pulled the machine out. Looking at the fact that there had only been five matches recorded, and that they took up the whole time he had been absent she stared blankly. "Ten hours, five matches. You dueled Fred smith to a standstill three times?"

"That's what the machine says, ain't it?"

"But, ten hours!?!"

"I don't really care about your opinion, just watch the recording." Tom then left; he was tired from ten hours of sitting in the cockpit of a zoid. And he wanted to see the inn, two. If only one bed of it.

While he slept he dreamt of Relena, not strange awkward dreams, well they were but not in the sensual sense. They were rather strange dreams, mostly nonsensical, a few semi-morbid. One was sensual, but all were a welcome change from what sleep normally led to. Borderline insanity. Where he had been, what he had seen, wars, famine, plague, algorithms, facts, everything he had ever learned heard about or seen flashed across his mind and he hated it. He knew too damn much. So tonight's dreams, no matter what they were, would be a welcome relief. And perhaps the oddest moment was when he actually died within a dream and his body carried a smile. Happy about death, or happy about a dream, which was it would be a question he would ask if he ever knew.

The next morning, after his first good sleep in ages, he awoke early. He went down and met chef Perrone once more. "You return. Honestly I'm surprised you're still here after that toss yesterday."

Tom made single barked out laugh, "After enough experience with death little scares you away from something you're interested in."

"Yeah, well don't let Relena hear you say that." Perrone said as he cut up various ingredients at an almost mind numbingly fast pace.

"You know I had some odd dreams last night."

"Odd huh?"

"Yeah. Uh… Crap I forgot them!"

"But you know they were odd right?"

"Yeah, I forget what they were. AH, and I really found them interesting. In a weird way." Tom went from mild frustration to wonder and back again constantly while he thought.

"Really, from what I hear you thought them odd."

"Well I'll tell you they were nothing like what I usually dream."

"Which is?"

"Intensely boring." Tom lied even as he expressed genuine frustration. "I feel like I've been dreaming the same dream for 10,000 years."

"That's a long time." Perrone said as he did various cooking motions without pause.

"So how was your night?" Tom asked without sounding inquisitive, somehow.

"Alright I guess." Perrone tried to keep the focus on the man who really was the star of the show, if, albeit, not the most important one in the show. He was curious, 10,000 years was a very long time. He had doubts that an 18 year old man would use that number in any serious reference. "So why have you been having this dream for o so long?"

"Think I know, dreams are supposed to be mysterious. I guess it means something. All I can figure is that I have way to good a memory."

Perrone sighed, "You really never like to divulge much about your past do you."

"No, you're wrong. Well no, actually you're right, but the reason I don't like to divulge my past is because it draws attention."

"_Draws_? Well now that would indicate you either have bad grammatical skills or that you have already revealed your past. So why not once more to a simple chef?"

Tom looked forwards from a slumped position in his chair. "Honestly I really have considered telling someone, you were on the list. But it's just too crowded here to do much. I swear if I get a chance to tell you in less awkward circumstances I will."

"Really now." Perrone stopped what he was doing. He stopped and waited until tom met his eyes. "Will you stay true?"

"You are quite the insightful man. But I swear I speak the truth. The first chance I get to tell you without anyone significant hearing I will tell you as much I can physically speak."

Perrone evaluated Tom; he was looking at Perrone, elbows on his knees, head in his hands, with his head turned towards Perrone. He had a very good level of personal insight. He knew when a person was lying or telling the truth just from body gestures tone pitch and whatnot. But the only times this ability ever felt conflicted was with people he knew. Like now, Tom's body said he was lying, but perrone's knowledge of the man said the truth was in there. In the end, as it usually did, his gut feelings won out. "All right, before I almost wanted the war to continue so I could keep my good job. Now I want it to end so we can just go somewhere and I can learn just who you are."

Tom laughed a loud laugh with genuine mirth on his face, "You wanted the war to go on so you could keep your job. And you say it's got good pay, you can pilot the Zoids from now on bub, if I get your paycheck I'll be the chef."

The two laughed and began to make job comparisons when a short while later Relena came in. "There you are! Get in the briefing room, now."

"Right mam! Yes mam, whatever you say mam!"

"Say mam again and you get court-martialed."

"Right." Tom said as he ran out and up the stairs to the briefing room.

When he arrived he walked in on maps, statistics discussions and an angry Major shouting at someone about something. It probably would help if she won the argument. Tom debated about intervening, but that may do more harm then good depending on who was on the other end. Tom knew a few guys pretty well. Others hated his guts, and thus knew him better than he knew them. Those were the relations he didn't like.

"Oh tom." John said as he stopped right in front of him. "We were wondering when you would show up." John pulled out a clipboard from under his side. "We got a report of a town occupied by some recently moved in Zenebas. We're just trying to figure out what to do."

Tom flipped through his clipboard. It seemed to be clipboard of ideas. Best he could figure this had occurred three days ago. But there were over 20 pages of various plans, some seemed to be marked in the right way for potential use, others seemed marked for failure, in large Tom could see why for those. Here and there he saw a plan destined for one thing over another that he mentally switched around and made a failure a success or success a failure.

Finally, 30 minutes later tom had skimmed 20 something ideas. Also he had moved halfway down the hallway to a point where the hubbub and noise of the briefing room was at a level where he could ignore it. He then got up and prepared to return, the noise increased and everyone seemed to be shouting. Tom turned around and went to the radar room to get some peace a quiet to think while still having access to maps.

In the radar room he met, the new gunner Chad Michaels, the new repair man, Steve Eule, and the female radar operator, Sam Flower. Chad was a young man, 20. He wore a red vest with brown and green clothing underneath. His hair and eyes were an un-interesting shade of brown. Steve showed up less on anybodies radar. He simple wore the standard uniform, had neat hair brown eyes and nothing more of notice. Sam flowers, unlike Relena, jess to a lesser extent, and especially Jaina, especially, **especially** her, had no overly beautiful features that the average man would take time out of a schedule to notice. Her name would get people to stop, well her last name would, but there was little more. She had glasses, dirty blonde hair, an average body and green eyes. Only a little more noticeable in a crowd than the other two guys all in all.

Tom greeted the three who all responded kindly to his greetings with some sort of sign of liking on their faces. Then tom began to mount the ladder to the radar tower, which was much longer than the old one, he actually had to do some climbing. A few moments up tom paused, he had not been in the radar tower and he had just met one of the radar people. Tom thought about what had happened last time without hint of emotion on his face. He turned around to ask the three whether or not he should go up into the radar room, but they were all gone. "Damn they're good." Tom said as he continued up the ladder, "Nothing ventured nothing gained." He grumbled more than reasoned, his reason was, in his thoughts, _I am sure as hell getting up there whether whoever is in there would want me or not. If they don't want me then too bad I'm a coming you goddamn son-of-a-bitch. _Then tom added, _and the three new guys never tried to turn me away too._ At the last minute as the excuse to use when he knew what was coming came.

Tom opened up the hatch and any doubt, or hope; he felt both at the moment could be used, evaporated when he felt the super hot air. _Oh well I'm damned anyway, might as well see if I can fix the thing._ He got up into the radar station and stood up. He looked around; from his six feet in height the small hatch to the radar room gave only the tiniest blind spot for tom to miss someone in. He scanned the room like a machine. His eyes came across a sleeping Jaina, with her shirt off, he skipped that with but a moment of pause. Then it came across a map printout quickly looking at it he stared. Gently folding it down he went over to where the air conditioning unit was, right by Jaina's head. After a perplexed moment of how to deal with the situation brute force won. With a not so gentle shove Jaina was halfway across the room, and dead asleep. "Who was the genius who put her on the job?" Tom grumbled to himself, when he realized, "Hey this room isn't super hot!" He stared at Jaina, with a wrench in hand prepared to bash the heck out of the machine just to relieve any stress he had. "Dear god the girl can do stuff!"

Then Jaina stirred. Seeing as she was seated underneath the whole of the radar when she got up she bumped her head on the machine. While stretching to rub her head tom saw that she had gone bare naked from the waist up while repairing the machine. His eyes disappeared, that was it they were gone.

"OH GOD!" She shouted grabbing her clothes. "Didn't anyone tell you that I was up here!!!"

Tom just nodded and walked down the ladder, but not before grabbing the map that had been printing out when he came up. At the base he gave one eyeball-less look up at Jaina who looked down at him shirt still being clung to her body and red in the face with fury, who then slammed the hatch down on him, then tom's eyes returned to normal. He looked at his map, glancing back to the first portion of it he checked as to what it was for. After figuring out what it was for Tom turned around and faced the three people who could hide in any group. "Um hi."

Sam was giggling, Chad Michaels was just holding in his laughter and Steve Eule was rolling on the floor. "God you actually had to deal with Jaina!" Sam finally blurted out as she and Chad began to laugh outright. "God and she was naked too wasn't she! Well sucks to be you!"

Tom stared at them oddly. "Heh?"

"If anyone catches her naked when she doesn't want them to." Sam laughed another outburst. "Oh god, hell will seem like a welcome salvation compared to the war she declares on you."

Tom stared at them for a moment, then he began laughing louder than any one of them, "Oh dear god you are idiots!" He shouted out while laughing up roariously. Sam Chad and Steve stopped laughing and either glared at him or looked at him like he was crazy. "I thought everyone knew that I knocked her out yesterday with my fist. I would assume that that already means that I've declared war on her. Which I have, and this will do naught more." When tom looked up the others were gone, "Gone again." Tom said serious once more, "I have to learn how to do that." Tom then did the exact same. It seemed like he had never been there once he was gone. Honestly the hallway seemed to have been abandoned for years.

Then in the planning room tom came in on a situation only slightly different than that which he had encountered before. It was a little calmer; the murmur of backup had managed to dismiss the radar people back to their normal jobs. That or the murmur that the radar room was cool again, which most certainly couldn't have hurt. Relena had stopped shouting at the phone and was talking calmly with whoever was on the other end. There atmosphere of the room still was hustle and bustle but it wasn't a panicked hustle and bustle, just one that indicated something important was going on.

"Hey someone just sent us area maps, as well as surveillance reports and what they're going to send to us in return." Tom held up the papers. He couldn't decipher what the exact response from each person but I became a hair more relaxed when he said that. Tom but down the massive map print out and let it unroll from being rolled up. Then he took out the intelligence report he had folded up. He just then looked at the actual numbers for the fist time. "Dear god, 58 Zoids, that's a small assault force bent on taking out this entire sector of the front!" Tom shouted. Everyone looked at him oddly. "Sorry, but I just got here."

"But didn't you have to deal with a 600 Zoid assault force while you were away?" Fred smith asked.

"Yeah, and I had almost as much backup. Also there were 13 elites present, myself included." Elite was the term for multiple aces within a time period, someone who had been around for 10 years in a conflict like this could not become an elite if he only became a double ace in his tenth year. Although it had happened depending on how quickly their kills/ko's mounted up for the final period. If they had a sudden streak that indicated rapid improvement in time before becoming a double/triple ace or whatever ace they could be awarded. Other cases, for example Tom's case, was rapid ace. In one single fight after two weeks on the front he had taken out six Zoids. Thus he was awarded the title of elite after that battle.

Elite lacked any official status, it was just a word in the end, but this word carried plenty of weight with the media and the other people in the military. Elites would often get moved to difficult assignments, when they succeeded at those assignments they got more press, when they failed they were mourned greater.

"Perhaps the best one there besides me was the guy who got me there, Lambada stoller." (The guy with the iron Kong, yeah he's an elite too)(And that name was just now made up, I never named him before, and no he's not related to backdraft Stoller)

"Both you and Lambada on the same assignment?" Fred said, "Well I see why that was so easy."

Tom laid the map out on the table. "We have 4 Zoids, but only three pilots. We need to draw those guys into a situation that's to our advantage."

"Well if we wait three days we can get the bad guys either within other outpost territory and get their allies, or at least have two other Zoids to use." Relena said as she observed the map and made some sort of mental distance calculation.

"Who are we getting."

"Two former warriors, one has a shield liger, the other a di-bison. The shield liger won't be useless by any measure, and the di-bison will be very useful for this."

Tom blinked at the topographic map in front of him. He held it up and looked hard for a few moments. "So where exactly do you think they'll be in four days?"

"In range of several bases, our base will be in severe danger of getting attacked, but if we start calling in support now we can make it."

Tom produced a pencil from god knows where, "I have an idea." He said as he began circling things. "Someone should get in on calling support from whoever can offer it; I need to make a battle line at certain spot. Or it's backup, or the one after that."

"Where would they stay?" Fred asked as he began to observe each point on the map.

"Wherever, I don't care at all." Tom and Fred then began a discussion that would end when the battle began.

Three days later the new fellows arrived. Both were joined by a small convoy of assorted land based Zoids; there were already 8 aerial Zoids in the hangar, and Tom's command wolf. When the new people arrived anyone not assigned to the base was moved out into pre-determined locations. The new guys, pilot's John Markia and, Anna Spopovich. John used the shield liger and Anna used the di-bison. When they saw tom the pair immediately jumped back in fear. Tom noticed this and asked the pair, "Do you know me?" They nodded, "Would I know you?"

"Maybe." John got out quickly and quietly.

"Umm…. Maybe, how can I work with maybe?" Tom pondered his hand on his forehead. _They're zoid warriors so, umm… OH YEAH! Duh, why didn't I figure it out earlier, plenty of people have done it._ "You two are frightened of me because I kicked your asses back in a zoid battle."

They nodded, Anna added, "You almost killed my brother. And left me half dead." (Anna's brother, not mark, Anna's brother is insignificant)

"No what I remember was that some nut from a group calling itself backdraft came down and attacked us with an odd zoid. I evaded all the shots fired and they hit you."

"But after that you shot at us!" Mark shouted.

Tom blinked, put his hand to his chin and thought. "Nope don't remember that, well you guys need to get ready for you're first assignment."

"WHAT!" The two shouted.

"Yeah, don't tell me that you didn't guess something was up when you saw all these people accompany you, we're gonna have a battle near this base."

The pair stared shocked at the man. But Tom was gone in a few moments. Leaving with a message, "Deploy or face my wrath once more." The two decided it was better to be deployed.

A half a day later all the Zoids save for tom's command wolf and the two storm sworders had been deployed. Tom was running last minute prep as he attached weapons and accessories that were the lightest ones he had. As well as the largest most efficient set of boosters he had, he was going to be the swing guy, striking in what would hopefully be a preplanned pattern. But acting as a last minute reinforcement as necessary to make sure the enemy never broke through the line.

Then the message of the first encounter came. As expected it was in the center of the line. By the time tom was properly ready to deploy the battle had extended to cover half the field based on the exact middle of the battle front. Tom quickly set an estimate for where to strike based on his plan and set a course for the exact middle of the enemy assault wave. Which had managed to break off into two almost perfectly straight lines, save with a slight bend on the defenders left flank, the attackers right. As was the plan.

Tom looked at the map, Fred and Jaina had deployed into the air battle, which they had total control of. Although a glance at the radar image showing hostile and friendly aerial Zoids scattered haphazardly over the map. Not the type of battle tom was best at strategizing for, although personally he felt he kicked ass in loosely organized battles. Tom glanced back at John, his gunner. "You ready for this, it's no small battle we're going into."

"Don't dissuade me from it. Cause then I might not be ready and screw up."

"Fair enough." Tom said as he ran the boosters at max towards the battle point on his left flank.

As far as Tom's participation in the first stage of the battle was concerned he did constant rushes into the enemy's left flank and ripped the thing to shreds. But reinforcements kept on pouring on it until it became obvious army intelligence got only 1/3rd of the actual enemy unit amount. A last minute request for any and all support did get a few aerial units and a lightning saix or two headed towards the battle front but what would an increase of 62 land Zoids to 65 do against 130 hostile land based Zoids. And also what would 12 aerial Zoids do against 30? A helluva lot more. In fact the aerial battle was half done by the time the land battle had reached its primary climax of the discovery that the enemy had thrice the units it was assumed there originally were.

However that extreme lack of enemies of note in the sky let Fred smith spend a lot more time engaging enemies on the ground than the air. Over half a dozen kills went to him in the time the enemy was still making their ground front, and while there were more than 20 enemies in the air battle. Jaina was actually doing half decent against the enemies in the air, even if she landed only one in five hits she still could survive the most intense of the g-forces her zoid could exert on her body. If it did stretch her skin, body, and clothing in awkward ways, well then that was just temporary tightness that the boys could look at if they weren't to busy fighting for their lives, which everyone was.

Anna spopovich was on the right flank, which had the most annoying and mentally detrimental fight of all. Tom had selected the ideal positions to force the enemy into, and unfortunately the right flank of the battle was done with both sides under cover. Since Anna had a di-bison rocks were no major issue, but the right flak was also staffed with high firepower Zoids only. So if the enemy got the idea to try and rush them and succeeded, which if done early enough was not impossible, then they would be dead. And if there was no right flank the entire line would be destroyed. So they had to lay down some pretty serious fire power if they wanted to win, and live for that matter. So there was a re-loading post right over a hill which was right behind the right flanks position.

John Markia and his shield liger were on the left flank. John was told to be a mid ranged unit, and to try and keep some allied Zoids from being completely totaled if possible with his shield. So far he had gotten three kills and saved one guy from getting wasted. The only thing was that while the right flank was ordered and separate the left flank was a duel to the death. The left flank had no cover for the enemy, and only somewhat decent cover for the Guardian force. So the enemy had decided on a charge upon leaving the cover and thus the left quarter of the battle line was engrossed in melee combat. It was the most hectic part of the battle. Zoids like blade ligers would randomly skirt through the fighting ripping at groups of enemies who stood still for too long, or seemed slow. Flying Zoids dashed overhead for mere moments and took a few potshots at anyone they thought were foes, but they rarely stayed, the entire battle was ready to explode into the sky at a moments notice. When they did stay they were plain shot down, thus was the fate of 8 flying Zoids thus far. The only advantage was that Tom was in full kick-ass mode. There was little he didn't destroy. With 13 enemies down in a half hour and more coming in for an hour straight there had been times when tom took up a position on a high rock and just sniped out people running into the battle for minutes at a time. Then at some point he jumped into the main battle wherever new enemies had come most recently. The only reason that the left flank held up while the enemy sent in 70 Zoids against there mere 20 some odd was because the enemy was sending in mostly inexperienced soldiers, with no previous combat experience. Then there was the Ghost fox that made a few people run away. And the ghost fox just outright killed a lot of guys.

But as time passed both sides became less ferocious in their assaults. Once the reserves were gone the Zenebas attackers had to try and keep themselves from getting obliterated on either flank and especially the center, where they had the worst cover and the Guardian force had some of the best, as well as even forces, which remained constant and the center for both sides dropped to 8 guys, Zenebas by deaths, GF by spreading out the troops.

The right flank was more hectic shooting, and more time spent dodging. With the occasional large attack maneuver made by one side of the other. The left flank kept one constant man ripping through the enemy, Tom. Even when he had only ten shots left he simply attacked with claws and fangs ripping out a blade ligers blade once, at other time annihilating the weapon systems of any number of Zoids. When the three Zoid aerial backup arrived, the GF flyers spread out a bit to assist the front more. And when the land backup arrived they were sent to the chaotic left flank. While the three new Lightning saix did little to decrease the 2:1 Zenebas to GF troop ratio the fact that they were aggressive and very skilled pilots did. Causing chaos in the enemy lines the three Saix managed to create a total enemy rout. Without the help of tom, who was re-stocking on ammo, and left with only 32 shots loaded to help finish the plan. Ordering the saix to the further left and telling the flank to make a circle to the enemy right flank the battle line became a revolving door and was smashed upon each other. Shortly afterwards however a small bunch broke out from the main line and made a bee line towards 'the inn'. The group of five, a gun sniper, a command wolf, an iron Kong, and two mogulas were met by the bases defenses, three small auto turrets and several hundreds of micro missiles controlled by Devon at a computer panel. And one large manual mega turret controlled by Chad. The large turret fired at the iron Kong. Everything else shot at what was convenient.

Then came the message that drew the two elites from the thick of battle. "Fred, Tom," Major Darlian's voice came across "we are under attack, enemy forces have managed to break the lines and are now at out perimeter, currently they are stuck on a defensive line by the boulders at the edge of the forest but," a large explosion was heard as well as major Darlian's scream. "Oh god, they've circled around back." A pause, "Well blow the shit out of them Devon." Another pause. "What the hell do you think you get paid to do! Blow the shit out of them by any means that's an order."

Tom and Fred were both already on the way to the base before Relena was done talking. Fred went much faster than tom, but tom went faster that his Zoids should have been able to go, John was soaked with sweat and had probably wet himself already in some of the situations where he felt it was unnecessary and more importantly stupid to charge into battle, and tom did. So he was out for the time being, due to total fear that the man piloting this Zoid was truly insane and obsessed with some type of battle madness.

That wasn't an impossible truth.

Either way Fred reached the far side of the base and took out the pair of mogulas with one pass, which flipped the little worms over, however because Fred had been pushing his zoid to the limit in order to help with the main battle, the small 'dink' sound that one small machine gun shell from the auto defense's made was too much for the zoid already at it's limits. In the end the main saving graces for zoid and pilot were that, A) he was going very slow around a turn when his storm sworder lost control, B) he was about 22 feet above the ground, which was a fall a storm sworder could survive going at twice the speed his had been going.

Thus Tom was forced to charge into the fray, and he was more than ready to do so. Shortly after Fred hit the ground and left a trail of debris that could be seen for miles around tom was blasting at the iron Kong in order to avoid going into combat with the thing. The 8 blasts he directed at it did that well enough. At least it was down for the rest of the base defenses to take some potshots. Then came the gun sniper with its lot's of weapons, even if half of them were used up that was like half of a million, and 500,000 is still a lot. Also there was the command wolf, whom lacked the amount of firepower but the pilot had the skill to take tom on, and perhaps occupy him while the gun sniper did stuff. That second one seemed to be the plan. The command wolf met his identical model foe firing off every shot he had and then jumping to meet his foes charge when Tom leapt for a physical strike. His zoid lost one leg entirely as well as the lower half of the back leg on the same side, and his cannons were gone. Then the gun sniper turned on the newly arrived foe. Firing off his whole missile arsenal remaining at the most dangerous threat present tom countered with a strike at the zoid canopy, shattering it, and then throwing a small circular device with a blinking light at the wave of shot and missile. When the two impacted all the missiles exploded and the bullets fired just seemed to go everywhere but where Tom was. Then in the middle of the explosion Tom came soaring at the gun sniper with some odd looking guns in his hands. The guns were designed so that the 'stock' didn't exist. Instead they were two dual wielded guns that had a hand guard that wrapped roughly around tom's hand, with decent room to spare. Also they had odd golden edges; maybe they could be called blades or something, that came down from the end of the muzzle. When tom used them the shots fired made small explosions against the gun sniper. The blades cut off whole sections of the armor or a limb or something. Then tom stood in front of a ruined gun sniper with a look of distaste in his face. He sighed and began, "thank god it only cam-" Then the iron Kong shot him.

"HA, I have killed the great and terrible 'ghost fox'! What would a ghost do, regenerate. Hell he'd just phase through the attack. But no that hit him dead on. Well he can just kiss my ass and stay dead, cause that sonofabitch was a major pain for Zenebas. I mean come on, hell; he just ripped apart a zoid with some little wimpy guns. I am very glad that he's dead."

He was the only happy one present. Relena, John, chef Perrone, Devon, all of them were either in shock or depression.

"No, master!" John shouted as he got up out of the cockpit, still too shocked to really process anything.

"What the!" Perrone said as he stood at a window holding an ammunition box ready to reload some weapons.

"That bastard will die!" Devon shouted as he angrily smashed the control panel.

"No." Relena said as she backed away. "How could he die?" Images of him at his best flashed in her mind. "Why did you kill him! You bastard, you will go to hell if I have to send you with my own two hands!"

Then a small black stream about as wide as a small Gardner snake came out of the smoke. It slowly snaked it's way up to the iron Kong. For a moment the pilot stared at it from the view screen in his cockpit. Then it began to whirl and change. It did this for quite some time. Then the iron Kong moved it's gun to shoot it. Suddenly the flame became much thicker to the thickness of the average humans waist width. And the end of the flame gained a massive dragon head. The iron Kong shot the flame, which was now a black dragon, the dragon didn't notice a bit. It impacted the Kong smashed it through some trees, and boulders, and finally stopped upon impacting a cliff, there weren't even ashes of ashes left of the thing.

Back at the smoke everyone looked towards the crater. The smoke began to clear when tom was revealed alive. Standing stock still calmly breathing. "These fools obviously have no idea I'm immortal." He said to himself, with more than a hint of him actually feeling glad they were affected by his loss.

-End-

Well I made Tom a little too powerful you say, TOO BAD, it's a fanfiction I am allowed to hand out powerups on the level of goku whenever I wish.

Now for my little bonus feature, whose name was that! (I started it in a .hack fanfic, .hack is based on an online game so I make up names out the wazoo and now it seems to have gone over a little here)  
So new names this chapter  
Anna spopavich - spopavich is Dragonball z villian. He's insignifcant but he has a cool name. Even though no-one remembers who he is Anna, just a name.  
Jaina - Jaina proudmoore of the warcraft serious. That is her name inspiration. And if anyone out there hates her and has a desire to burn her she will get physically lit on fire, when this thing all goes on the crazy train to hell.(I'm pulling an evangelion in the plot structure)  
Chad michaels - from bades of glory's Chad Michaels Michaels. that's it  
Steph flowers - a cousin of my with her last name in the pluarized form.

Also I would like to initiate a little game, to see if anyone ever reads this stuff. I would like for everyone to guess at any one of Tom's actual back stories. They are, well they're where he comes from, and what he does/how does he do this. I doubt you can guess the first one. And the how of the second one should be near impossible. But what doesn't count as that thing where I said he can turn his skin black.

What you get… BONUS POINTS, I don't know what they do but you get them if you guess 1 correct.

If you get two you get to write the story cause you must be a mind reader.

Woo!


	4. Chapter 4

-Rebirth of the Guardians – the long awaited sequel to chapter 3

Chapter 4 – The final mission

-Ahem- DECEMBER FIFTH INTERNATIONAL DAY OF THE NINJA, CELEBRATE IT

Blunt, but exactly what I plan to do. Now you should too.

That was NOT copied directly from chapter 3…

Oh yeah, and I changed Tom's age (and thus Johns age since John is compared by being called the same age as tom) Now he's 21 at the beginning in order to account in his back-story. (Ooooh another hint to my guessing game, can you guess his past, probably not but you have to be a mind reader to see the curve ball I'll throw ya when I do reveal what it is) I also made an edit to the last time war took place; it has now been 200 years since the last major war. (Although only 20 since the last border conflict)

-Begin-

In a hospital bed making a recovery that shouldn't be possible the ghost fox first opened himself to the public as a miracle ace who prevailed against all odds in order to keep fighting the poster enemy, Zenebas, and now was just stuck in a bad situation. He had everything that the media needed to support the war. Drama, a sad past, a strong will, and a good story. Hell it's miracle no-one in the at home audience recognized the face that had been on their TV screens 10 years ago, or more recently 7 years, much more like it was in his current form.

-From the book series, "Why are they famous?"-

After the hospital recovery, and a bout of sickness he received from shock of the magnitude of his fame, Tom once again returned to the front. In the end there was no real inquiry to how he survived, what were the weapons and gadgets he used, and how was the iron Kong destroyed. (All though it should be painfully obvious why to you readers, HE'S NOT NORMAL)

No. Well there was no _official_ inquiry. To say the members of forward base 347 were more than a little interested upon one of their biggest stars return. And they went to desperate lengths to try and discover it all. But I digress. (And I tend to do a lot of that, I'm trying to limit it) So I'll let you try and guess to what lengths everyone went. (The most evil torture of all, MUHAHAHAHHAHAHA (I'm done with the commentary))

Late one mundane day a series of reports came in. They said a small Zenebas group, maybe 12 Zoids, if that much, was holding a town. The report indicated one odd fact than the fact that the town was the first to become a long term fortification with a lack of fortification needed. They all piloted black reddlers. And they seemed to be led by one ace pilot who, according to the same intelligence that had underestimated the 'grand battle of the canyon' Zenebas forces, was a child, perhaps not over ten years old. And if he wasn't the leader he was an elite pilot slave. Who was about ten years old.

Everyone who read the intelligence report was confused to say the least. Confused or disgusted. "What?" Was Jaina's response.

In stark contrast to the response of her Mentor Fred, "CHILD SOLDIERS! The Zenebas abominations, I will personally kill all save the child with my own hands!"

Tom treated it with no more passion than he would any report. He looked at the situation and began to plot. And plot, and plot, and plot, then he would plan, and then go back to plotting. And throughout this he had was honestly stuck.

Finally after three straight days of plotting and one half a day thus far of planning, with various assistance from various people along the way, he finally was stuck on the same point. "God damn it! How the hell do we fight without blowing the town to pieces!?! Freaking, how the hell do we fight without killing all those innocents. Damn those stupid goddamn Zenebas sonofabitch bastards!" Major Darlian chose that moment to strut on in. Tom hit his fist on the table when he heard her arrive. "I have amazing accursed timing."

Relena sighed, he had become more agitated as this had drawn on. She really saw no way to make him relax. He just was to tense. "Will you relax at all. Lose some of you're stupid stress."

"Honestly." Tom said as he leant over the table with his elbows down resting on the table. "You have no idea what that hospital trip did for me."

"Then remember it and relax already." Relena said as she strutted over to the table once more.

"What it did was bad." Tom muttered as he picked up a small figure and tossed it around. "Before I knew of my statistical importance. I knew that it was important. I knew that it was of some enormous value. And hell that was no problem at all. I wasn't worried if I were to fail, other than the fact that that would mean certain death. I wasn't worried about the effect that would have. My dying, other than the fact that I would be dead, I felt my death would have no, or few, irreparable repercussions." Tom caught the figure; it was a miniature of his command wolf. He scooped up an iron Kong. He tossed the command wolf to his left hand and gripped it tight. He glared at the iron Kong. "But that hospital visit." His voice was faint. "That goddamned hospital visit." He tossed the Iron Kong up once. "That goddamned god forsaken accursed hospital visit. That iron Kong!" He shouted as he threw the figure into the wall. It harmlessly bounced off and hit the floor.

Relena stared at Tom. She hadn't moved during his whole speech. "So what did you learn?" She turned so that she rested her back on the table and then stretched her head back. "What was it that was so goddamned stressful? I just heard your stupid rant now I want to hear what type of crap made you get this way."

Tom chuckled, for a moment his shoulders laugh and a sound like a weak laugh, or cry, came out. "My public."

"You're what?"

"My fans. My geeks, my bitches, my public. Whatever you want to call it they provide the volunteers, draftees, equipment, money, general war support. The war is in their hands almost as much as ours. I had assumed, with over 100 kills under my belt, that I was somewhat famous. Heck even decently famous, but I never would have assumed that I was famous enough that support in the war effort dropped by 12 percent when the fact that the legendary 'ghost fox' was hospitalized. God I was surprised, almost scared. That one man can be that powerful without even trying. Imagine if I actually tried to take over the world."

"Don't let your popularity swell you stupid goddamned ego, you selfish bastard."

"Oh no you got it all wrong. I was genuinely scared. You see I know better than most the right people dead can make or break an empire. And fact is if I'm one of those people, well honestly I really genuinely feel that if I break this empire I just don't want to see all those people suffer." Tom laughed a bitter remorseful laugh. But all he did was laugh. "I'm just a common soldier, what could New York have been broken over babe Ruth? World war two by Elvis?" Tom laughed out loud a bark of a laugh, "Am I Spartacus the one destined to threaten Rome to no end?

Relena sighed, she didn't do this often but if he went nuts then they were really, really screwed. So she strutted up to him, went behind him and wrapped her arms around him. He stopped his ranting with a sigh. But he did relax somewhat physically. She sighed _he really is screwed up in the head; everyone I've ever done this too has lost almost all their muscle tension on contact. Well I guess step two, the flirt, is needed. _Thoughtlessly she reached her head up to the nape of his neck and kissed it, not the most romantic spot but the best she could get with the veritable giant in front of her and her being at his back already. Physically tom dropped all tension save that needed to keep him upright. "Feel better?"

Tom chuckled with mirth this time, "Yes mom, your kiss made the boo-boo go away."

Relena frowned, this was not protocol by any stretch, nor was it necessary in the military's eye. How he was reacting was just rude. Then she noticed, he was laughing with genuine happiness still.

Wiping an invisible tear from his eye he finally stopped. Gently raising up Relena's hands Tom turned around deftly. Then he kissed her lips, not with a long kiss, not with an intense kiss, but with a mirthful kiss, one with genuine joy stuck somewhere in it. "Thank you so much." He said as he walked out of the room, dropping a small figure on the floor on his way out.

It was his command wolf.

The next day a new intelligence report arrived, 'the village is being evacuated as we speak. Rumor has it that Zenebas soldiers told the villagers about some sort of 'secret weapon' called, Gael fury (related to the Gael stone) and several ultrasauruses are on the way to the forward front.

No-one could believe intelligence about stuff like this. Something this big was impossible. The 'Gael fury' seemed like something that couldn't exist. And related to the still not stolen Gael stone. (Or so they thought) Also this was the intelligence that, as has been stated before, was just plain bad. Of course their underestimation, in the words of tom, would suggest that, "The enemy probably has around 20 ultrasauruses headed this way. As well as at least two of those Gael furies. In short we are going to be gang raped." He said with a smile on his face as he completely ignored the reports that said something along the lines of what he suggested.

No-one in the base really cared about the general Intelligence reports said. The only time anyone said anything about the intelligence was when they sent in a report about an intercepted message saying, "Evacuation of civilians complete. Operation Gael-Z phase one can begin."

No-one believed this because no-one would think anyone would name anything 'Gael-z'.

However that message finally made everyone move, because it came with another message specifically for the group preparing to assault a small village. "The village is devoid of civilians, Zenebas has done the hardest part of the job for you."

This was intelligence that everyone was going to act upon. With Fred, Jaina and Tom quickly preparing to go to the town and take the enemy out and get the little kid, if there was one, tom advised extra caution. Everyone could feel something big on the horizon and no-one wanted to have to deal with more than they were prepared for.

When tom left with john in the command wolf with him Fred and Jaina did not. There were a few reasons behind this, one is that storm sworders are faster than pretty much all aerial Zoids, and all land based Zoids, save perhaps the raynos. Second was a timing aspect, they were to leave at a certain time as to coordinate their attack with toms. And third was the danger everyone could feel. If tom felt that it was more important to defend the base then he would let Fred and Jaina stay. He knew he would be able to handle a few black reddlers. It just would be hard. And also tom had just got new missile pods fixed onto his command wolfs side, and he wasn't sure if they would blast Fred and Jaina out of the sky by some freak accident. And last was that Tom was certain something bad would happen and he did not want to leave the base to only two Zoids, even if they were himself copied exactly twice.

In short this was honestly a solo mission from the start. And everyone knew it, even though they acted as though it weren't.

And thus the trek to the town began. On the way there tom suddenly felt odd as they passed ancient zoidian ruins. For a moment he actually passed out. The feeling, or the extreme one, passed quickly. But once tom woke up he felt something was missing. When Tom did wake up John had to ask, "Why did you pass out there?"

Tom blinked. He sat up and said simply, "Hold on, it's a meditation related thing." Tom simply straightened himself up and closed his eyes. His hands lay haphazardly arranged, his legs stretched out on the ground that he had been moved too. This lasted for a few moments then tom opened his eyes. "Are those zoidian ruins?" Tom asked pointing to the ruins that were nearby the two.

"Yup." John said figuring out a lot from that statement alone. "They were pretty famous; some strange zoidian writing called it the 'temple of the heroes'. It's a decent sized city, partly above ground in small, small cities spread about, partly below in tight cramped spaces. Only thing is, no-one has ever been known to get to the center. And of course rumor has it, since the hero Van Fleiheight (spelling) as well as Fiona and the rest of his fellow heroes disappeared in that city ages ago. Course that would lead people to assume that the hero is Van, and he's somewhere in the center. I'll let you make up your own legends from there."

Tom stared for a moment towards the ruins. "Like the lost treasure of Atlantis. It draws in hopefuls and fortune seekers alike. But I will never be tempted by it's pull. Unless you count It's pull for me as a push."

"What?" John said staring at tom like he was insane.

"Oh well I seem to be an odd one. You hear about how the first humans who arrived on the Globally 3, well at least some, were susceptible to fainting spells and weakness when near ancient Zoidian holy grounds. Yeah for some reason I have that same weakness."

John stared at tom like he had three heads, or more. "What are you 5,000 years old?"

"Not quite." Tom chuckled to himself.

John sighed, "Well are ya' over it?"

"Yes most certainly. Let's get moving. We've got a lot of ground to cover still." Was what tom said, but what he thought was, _Crap. I am no longer the black dragon while within this area. I guess I'll have to resort to who else I am. _Tom then, subconsciously thumbed his belt as he hopped up into his command wolfs cockpit. _But no matter what I will win. I have something I am fighting for!_

Upon the pairs arrival at the town tom called off Fred, which did little to anyone's plans. Then Tom went, alone, to observe the town and see how many enemies were present. Upon arriving he found that there were only black reddlers, and not a whole lot of them. Well not a lot by the standards of a man with over 200 kills in 8 months. Only about one dozen enemy Zoids. A cakewalk, save for the kid. Because tom recognized him right away. He was reddy – the lone reddler pilot of legend. Having been in the battle ranking for only one year he managed to reach the top 500. 500 out of over 18,000 pilots, in one year, at age 8. Tom had fought against him before. He always won, but only after hard fought battles.

Tom had been contacted at the earliest stages of the war by Zenebas with a request for his services but he had refused. Tom wondered who else Zenebas had requested for help. And who had listened.

Tom left knowing a hard fight would be ahead. And that the easiest way would be to get the reddlers down while they were on the ground. It wasn't chivalrous but chivalry was long gone in tom's eyes. Anyone who gave themselves over to the offer of money lost a lot of respect in tom's eyes.

Tom returned to the encampment of two. Where john greeted him with a reflection. "This is very similar to that first mission. You, myself. Several enemy reddlers our foe. You confident as ever."

Tom snorted, "Hell you crazy bastard you think I'm confident? What drugs are you on? I am, and have always been, genuinely nervous. Now more than ever before." Tom sat down. "The child intelligence talked about is a famous zoid battle commission warrior. Reddy, the child pilot master. If he were my age his skills could surpass my own. But I have the advantage now. So I'm using it."

John huffed, "You were scared. You're scared now. And most importantly you're telling me this before a big battle. You sure are one hell of a motivator."

Tom continued once he was sure John was finished. "I don't like being scared. I am scared when I am in battle and only then. The weakness of aerial Zoids is their challenge when it comes to being deployed into battle. With a land Zoids you just need ammo and to push a few buttons and you can go. Aerial Zoids need to be launched fueled and prepped in order to guarantee that there won't be a freak incident that may kill the pilot. Thus that is the weakness at which we will strike. It may be plain and simple but I plan to use the new missile launchers to blast all the reddlers I can, along with the Gatling cannon and take them out while they're on the ground."

John smiled. "I need my gunner to target for the missiles, you and I worked together on the operating system and it still isn't perfect. You shoot the missiles and I'll use the Gatling cannon. I pray thou can kick some major ass with me before this wave comes." Tom stretched out his hand, "the time is now, we strike at once then face the wave head on. I need you now more than ever."

John shook Tom's hand. "You know it, I know it. I'm pretty sure the whole world knows it. Something is coming and whether intelligence was right or wrong it's coming right here and it's coming soon. I guess it's you're nature to face the inevitable face on so I will stay with you."

"Begin the attack."

"At approximately midnight on night the later known as, 'night of fate', where many events coincided towards the final saga of the Zenebas conflict the first shots were fired by the legendary Ghost fox. They took out 8 black reddlers. Then the first fight of the day began."

-'Night of fate' a timeline, a history of the night and day during which the cursed wave mobilized-

The four reddlers began to fly in an intricate pattern overhead tom. Tom was occasionally taking potshots at one but mostly he was moving around town avoiding fire.

Unbeknownst to him the child pilot reddy was contacting his superiors for help. "General Sammael, general Sammael! This is reddy of the probe phase 4 sector 3 quadrant 1. We have encountered enemy forces and have engaged in combat. The enemy was able to bring out a surprise attack and take out a large portion of our reddler force we need backup!"

The general Sammael on the other end responded, "Who is the enemy?"

"Not sure but-" Then a pilots report confirmed it.

"WHAT WHERE DID THAT LITTLE SHIT OF AN ENEMY DISSAPEAR TO? He was right there a second ago. But he just phased out. A command wolf shouldn't be able to do that!"

"Sir it's not totally certain but the tactics, modifications and Zoid suggest that it's the Ghost fox." Reddy said calmly.

Sammael could be heard laughing. "What is it sir?"

"Oh nothing. I will be sending support of the greatest kind."

"Wait you mean!?!"

"Yes. I was uncertain where to deploy it but the confirmed presence of him right in the path of the president just fixed it, Reddy you you're comrades in arm that remain alive and the ghost fox will be the first to witness the Gael fury in a real battle. Honestly I feel jealous."

"Thank you sir. Over."

"Right. Over and out." Then radio communication between the two ceased. Just as the last black reddler was shot out of the sky.

And right as a command wolf stood over a small boy it's pilot leaning out of the cockpit. The pilot had no joy on his face when he said. "The Gael fury. So the first battle will take place here. And the enemies assault it tonight. Thank you."

-End-

So I know it's a bit odd. And shorter than usual. But I felt this should be split up into different parts. So this is part one of the final battle. And at least three more parts are to follow. As well as a conclusion chapter and an epilogue. Conclusion will be after the war. Epilogue will be at an unknown time.

Now for names:

Sammael – he is the name of one of the forsaken in the book series, 'The wheel of time' he really serves little importance overall. But he does appear a couple of times. Even though they all are during the final battle


	5. Chapter 5

-Rebirth of the Guardians – the long awaited sequel to chapter 4

Chapter 5 – The final mission – a boy and his reddler

So I can get this out of the way…

-Ahem- DECEMBER FIFTH INTERNATIONAL DAY OF THE NINJA, CELEBRATE IT

Blunt, but exactly what I plan to do. Now you should too.

That was NOT copied directly from chapter 3…

So far no-one is taking any guesses. Come on guessing games are more fun for me if you guess _then _fail. (I am cold and heartless)

-Begin-

Reddy had just ceased radio communications with the main commander of the entire war front when the most dangerous foe he could ever face came up behind him in a Zoid the pilot opened the window and glared down at him.

"Surrender or I beat you up with a flick of my wrist and make you come along in double binds." Were his sole words to the little boy. In reddy's head the most evil theme music he knew began playing.

Then reddy extended his hand and Tom jumped down and quickly scooped up the young boy and hopped back in the cockpit throwing reddy with John in the backseat.

"So kid." Tom started but didn't continue.

"What. What are you gonna do to me. You stupid military bastards are always trying to manipulate me because of my skill with Zoids but I'm goddamn sick and tired of it. So say what so I can tell you no."

"I was gonna ask how did Zenebas bribe you."

"Huh?"

"Yeah surprised, well they sent me a message, tried to bribe me and blackmail me but since I was such a loner before the war they really couldn't hold anything over my head at all. I guess Zenebas probably contacted at least the top 500 warriors on the continent and tried to get them on. I know quite a few who are still just battling even today. And I know more split on either side. But you were one I didn't expect to see in battle on either side."

"Why because I'm still a kid."

"You're exactly right."

"WHAT!" Reddy shouted.

"I can live with kids in zoid battles because zoid battles are nothing like real war. They are the closest thing to a controlled environment that a battle can be. War is another matter. Unless it is in an act of self defense I can never stand children being forced into battle."

"I see."

"You still have yet to answer my question."

"I joined Zenebas cause' they took away my parents."

"But I thought you didn't have any parents?" John intervened using his public knowledge of the infamous child zoid champion.

"Wrong." Tom replied. "He has no biological parents that the world, I and he included, know of. But he does have adoptive parents." Tom sighed, "I'm sorry to hear that. I thought they really did love you too."

"Wait how do you know his parents?" John asked completely surprised and somewhat confused.

"Well I don't know them personally but in exhibition battles and after tournaments I would meet reddy and his foster parents at the after party/celebration/event. I've fought him several times in a battlefield and though to this day I still have no losses he was one of my toughest opponents so we got to know each other well."

"Oh." John said understanding it all.

"Yeah." Reddy lamented. "Zenebas killed them although it was reported as a regular homicide they had been threatening me for some time and since I was a Zenebas orphan resident the government took me with just a flick of a finger."

"I am truly sorry. I can't do much now other than give you a way out."

"A way out, into a jail you mean right?"

"No I mean in a black reddler. We have one back at our base and since I'm headed that way I think we'll drop you off and I'll send you off in that."

"You can't do that!" John intervened, "It's against protocol, and not legal at all!"

"Wrong on both accounts. I placed the reddler in the war to pilot campaign and then bought it for myself for nothing. So it is private property that has a potential double use as a military weapon. But today will be an escape pod."

"No."

"Huh?" Tom and John both said staring at reddy.

"I'm gonna stay and fight."

"No you're not." Tom replied bluntly returning to the controls and preparing to max out the command wolf's speed.

"Yes I am." Reddy jumped at tom over the top of the seat in an attempt to gain control of the zoid. With a flick of his wrist Tom had reddy back in Johns' seat with a bloody nose.

"No you're not. I don't approve of child soldiers and how can I adopt you and become you're legal guardian if you're dead kid."

"Yes I, huh?"

"Look I've been thinking. This fighting all alone thing isn't working. I think I need a partner, and while I can't say if anyone in the base will stick around with me after the war, they all seem to be the type to stay in the army, I think you would be a good teammate."

"What?" John and reddy asked as one.

"Look reddy what I really want to do is give you a family that no-one can take away. So I guarantee that I will become you're new adoptive parent once this war is over and you'll keep a family with you as long as our mortal lives permit."

"Well if you put it that way it won't help if you're dead either." Reddy put his head down and became slightly depressed.

"Well seems someone doesn't have confidence in the skills of the man who beat him and his entire squadron."

"You're 300 kills are nothing, not even a drop in the bucket compared to what the Zenebas army is about to throw at everyone!"

"What!" John shouted, "You know about their plan!?!"

"Yes. They have 13 ultrasauruses ready, four just for the southern front we're on. As well as over 50,000 Zoids ready for combat. Some of them may be over 200 years old but almost all of them are well maintained and at least all that they will deploy can walk and shoot. Also they have the Gael fury headed towards that town there. I called in for reinforcements a little while ago and they said they would send the Gael fury to deal with it. Also they said that an Ultrasaurus would be headed right here to crush your pitiful base." Reddy sighed, "You, ghost fox, are the number one person they want dead. You should be the one to run because the assault is already under way."

Tom chuckled and then began to laugh out loud. After a few minutes of near insane laughter tom lowered the head of the command wolf down. He opened up the cockpit. "John get out, run reddy with you back to the base and tell everyone to evacuate."

"Tom what about you!?!"

"I'm gonna face the enemy head on and destroy this accursed Gael fury because it undermines my one greatest triumph the battle of Gael. Then I'm gonna charge into the enemy and see if I can last long enough to damage that Ultrasaurus."

"You think you can live in a fight against the Gael fury!" Reddy shouted. "Apparently you've got almost no intelligence about it. It'll rip you to shreds. You have no chance! Go with your team mates and get out to a larger group of troops. Maybe you can hold them off then. Maybe with people at your back you can beat the Gael fury, possibly even an Ultrasaurus! But don't go die alone if you die I'll be stuck in Zenebas's clutches for sure!"

Tom laughed again. He got up and forcibly removed Reddy, John got out of his own free will. "Don't worry about me. I'm a man who may one day be known for making miracles." _Besides, _tom thought, _death looses it's chill when you've been alive for 10,000 years._

Finally after the two left running with a radio waiting for the first moment of radio contact to call the base call for support and tell everyone else to leave tom turned around. "Well you've been a good friend." Tom said patting the command wolf he was in. "But I don't know if you'll survive the night. And fact is you are a gift for me I was not meant to have. Every bone in my body should naturally reject Zoids. But…" Tom closed his eyes he had many memories with this zoid, "I don't regret a minute of it, do you?"

Then a charged particle beam ripped through the town. Destroying the small village and traveling partway up the hill. Not far and not in tom's direction by any judge of perspective.

"The Gael fury eh? Seems to have a charged particle cannon. I'm gonna enjoy defeating one of those. How about you partner?"

In a response to this question the command wolf howled at a volume that could be heard from the base to the advancing Zenebas armies.

Tom leant forward in the cockpit. "The ghost fox will never die. He'll just haunt a new spot, Hell." And with that he charged into the face of some unknown monster.

Meanwhile John and reddy ran towards the base, when all of the sudden John made a revelation, "We'll take over a week to get back to the base on foot!" He shouted.

"No shit Sherlock." Reddy grumbled, "What we need is a car or a zoid. Either works." He looked around, "Hey what is that in those ruins?" He said as he pointed towards a thing in the ruins. "Looks like crap, but I think we can use it."

John stared at reddy, "Stop cursing!" He shouted and smacked him on the back of the head. (The origin of that little 'parenting' technique)

The two still ran to find whatever the object in the hole in the ground was, they found it was a blade liger, one in a very bad condition, but still usable nonetheless. They got inside and got the ancient zoid moving, after some effort was exerted, and once they did they turned up the boosters to max and let the zoid run as long as he could. Then once the booster was red-lining they let the zoid move as fast as it could normally.

Of course once the booster stopped the two began to talk. "Isn't it odd that we'd just find a blade liger in those ruins for no apparent reason?" Reddy asked john from the pilot's seat.

"Yeah, I'm no zoid expert but I do know that a blade liger is a very, very good zoid. That and I do know it's very rare."

"Yeah, you have to wonder who left it there and why." _And why do I feel a connection to this zoid? _Reddy asked himself, _Zeke…_ For a moment he became lost in thought and began to drift.

"Hey bub you're drifting."

"Oh god!" Reddy said forced back into reality, "Whoops sorry bout' that!" He straightened the zoid up, "Hopefully we'll get there to get back and help tom with the Gael fury."

"I'm not worried about that." John chuckled. "I feel sorry for the pilot of the Gael fury. He's gonna die scared and beaten."

"Have you ever seen the Gael fury in action?" Reddy asked the over confident John.

"Nope, never even seen the zoid period."

"Then trust me, no matter how good tom is he's screwed."

"Before you judge, remember the battles he's done against you, and never lost. Did you ever feel like he was just too strong, no matter how good you became he was always three levels higher or more? I've been his gunner and seen how he is without a gunner. His gunning ability far surpasses mine. Despite having thousands of hours training and plenty of combat practice. It's almost like he uses me as a handicap. And he still will charge recklessly into battle where he should have no chance of winning. He's the type of guy, who will only show his best, better than what he could do with me as his ally or you as his foe in this battle, of that I am certain."

Reddy reflected on what John said. When he had versed tom in the past whenever Reddy had been on the top of his game Tom had trounced him the best, it had nothing to do with over confidence, tom simply had mental barriers that he erected to limit the power he used on weak enemies. Those barriers came from him being someone who was just so used to utter destruction coming from his actions that he simply hated it. On the other hand Reddy knew what the Gael fury could do. He had seen it first hand. A moment of thought led to Tom as the victor in the battle of his mind.

Tom charged towards the Gael fury ducking and weaving his custom command wolf through the trees rocks and even the occasional building. He begun the battle with Gael only moments before and was already resorting to Guerilla tactics. Darting around in a random shape of unknown size and shape tom released random bursts of fire at the Gael fury some more damaging than others, but none did much. However on the other hand the Gael fury, despite its apparently massive arsenal had yet to hit tom once, maybe it was because neither combatant knew what the other zoid looked like, and the fact that tom was invisible too helped. However tom had only seen a vague outline of his foe. All he could figure was that the zoid was a giant dragon, maybe. It had wings like one as well as the ability to shoot fire. Whoever created the zoid was perhaps going for the dragon image.

Tom ran along, suddenly three loose missiles went directly at him, "Shoot!" He grumbled as he turned his gun at the missiles, with three short bursts he knocked each one out of the sky. Then with two more he aimed at the Zoids wings. One hit dead on at the body wing joint, the second shot missed by a hair but still hit and exploded near the area desired.

Then tom entered a clearing, here the Gael Fury, if it looked, would be able to see tom's dust trail. But tom would also be able to see the Gael fury. And he looked hard once he was in the open. "Oh my god." Tom said, and for a moment he was overcome with awe. The zoid was like the stuff out of legend. A massive red dragon the zoid had metallic scales everywhere. It was physically closer to the European conception of the dragon in appearance. There were two sets of wings, and dual boosters on the Zoids back. There were missile pods that seemed to have unlimited ammo in them under the front plates forming the 'dragons' chest. The tail had obvious joints for a charged particle cannon charger. And apparently the mouth could spout fire too. The claws were capable of acting like grappling hooks and hooking into enemies. The tail could probably be its own weapon, as the wings could too. Tom didn't look for long, but he got a good look and quickly knew what to do next. Rather than running in circles he was headed straight towards that monster and ripping the Gael stone right out of it.

-End-

Well that was a cliff hanger ending, but I think it came out better than I thought it would. So enjoy!


	6. Chapter 6

-Rebirth of the Guardians – the long awaited sequel to chapter 5.

Chapter 6 – The Gael

So I can get this out of the way…

-Ahem- DECEMBER FIFTH INTERNATIONAL DAY OF THE NINJA, CELEBRATE IT

Blunt, but exactly what I plan to do. Now you should too.

That was NOT copied directly from chapter 3…

And what about tom and reddy, they both thought odd things last chapter. I have hinted at what reddy really is, just not insinuating him. (Hint: All you need to know is…) And tom, well he's not the same thing as reddy.

-Begin-

Running straight towards the Gael Fury focusing solely on the small green stone he had seen once in his mind he thoughtlessly evaded fire. The pilot must have caught something because his attacks were much more accurate now. Tom didn't even take time to curse his luck as missiles missed him by a hairs width. Nor did he take time to curse his luck as he discovered the wings had multiple laser beam firing mini-turrets which had amazingly precise accuracy. Tom still evaded each attack his eyes closed his mind focused on a single glowing green object. He opened his eyes, and then every mental barrier broke.

Moving at speeds believed only to be possible by a lightning saix and evading hundreds of missiles and lasers shot by the Gael fury. However despite a 10 to 12 fold in increase of skill and power on tom's part the Gael fury's pilot had that much more latent skill in him too. Each move was a move right into the path of a missile or laser beam. But nothing hit. Each pilot had the skill and the focus to end the match in one attack but neither could. Tom however reached his objective first.

In town he reached a series of several building which came surprisingly close to the Gael fury. Tom hopped up each one until he came to the street and the highest building. Then he and his command wolf leapt. Aiming for the wing of the zoid with the boosters on over-drive and the super customized command wolfs natural speed pushed to the max it wasn't and impossible dream. Until the edges of each wing were revealed to have a sharp chain running along them. Tom didn't even try to make it he simply turned down towards the ground and deactivated his boosters once he was safe. As quickly as possible he came about in a loop towards the tower of buildings. The Gael fury pointed at the spot where tom would jump from and began charging a charged particle beam. Tom ran activating his boosters at the bottom. Pressing four buttons on the command panel to allow for his plan to work tom opened the cockpit hatch and un-locked his safety he stood up in a semi crouch ready to jump.

"Partner, I doubt I'll make it through this, so I hope you do." He said. _I'm just a relic from an older age which has revealed its knowledge. I don't need to live. Reddy, John, you my zoid. All of you are of the current age and need to help it progress. I would like to live and play my part out further, but since my most important role is done… _Tom closed his eyes as he made the jump. "I CAN PUT EVERYTHING EVEN MY VERY LIFE INTO THIS ONE ATTACK!" Tom shouted.

Although he was not a caring or interested person the Gael fury pilot noted that his foe was a person with conviction. He would respect the man called the Ghost fox but who was so much more.

"YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!" Tom shouted at a broadsword appeared in his hand with a white flash. The Charged particle beam fired. Tom was right in the path; with a focus that not even death itself could deter Tom made a slice and knocked attack aside. "I WILL HELP THE PEOPLE OF THE FUTURE! THAT IS THE ROLE OF THOSE WHO'S TIME HAS PAST!" He said as he made a mark in the Zoids hide that looked like an upper case letter 'A' with the middle line a little large and a slight curve on each line. He was in the zoid. Just where he had planned to get on the back of the zoid and blast a hole into. In front of his was the Gael stone, visible in the center of the crystalline zoid core. Tom ignored it; he was getting the pilot to change his course to somewhere where he could be more potent.

Meanwhile Reddy and John arrived in the base in time to shout out, "There's a massive Zenebas army on the horizon tell you're generals to prepare a counter offensive to fight back!" And then once that was done, "Now we're going to help Tom!" As quickly volunteers of, Perrone, Fred, Oliver, Devon, Bekah and Relena prepared to go save their hero. Everyone else stayed behind to stand their ground and hold the attacking Zenebas army as long as they could if not long enough for tom to return.

The group, with two people in a storm sworder, and three in both the blade liger and reddler went off, everyone armed ready to save the person who meant very much to them.

Tom arrived in the pilots cockpit, when asked to surrender the pilot had a question for him, "Will you let me run and tell the story of the Zenebas defeat?"

Tom looked at the man. A gun and handcuffs in his two hands. "Fine."

"Thank you, I pray that with this the events to come will never come to pass again."

"What did I give you a revelation?" Tom said without emotion.

"Yes."

"Then do me a favor, I can't use a single weapon on this zoid the cockpit is so alien, tell me which buttons to push and head me in the direction of the nearest Zenebas Ultrasaurus."

With a few buttons pushed all of this was done. "I hope I'll meet you in the future sir."

"I doubt I'll survive, but I will try and if I succeed then so do I."

The pilot walked out of the cockpit. "I know where to go, I'll get out and run, if they think I'm just a civilian I'll be fine."

Tom didn't care he was in the cockpit learning about the zoid as fast as he could, he was planning on taking out an Ultrasaurus.

The pilot landed on the ground a few minutes later. He had been wearing a flight outfit that covered his entire head. When he took it off upon landing he looked strikingly similar to tom overall. "I pray that you succeed those Zenebas monsters ruled over my life in an attempt to kill you. I was their ultimate weapon made from the purest genes of the intelligent humans and the purest genes of the wise and noble Zoidians. I hope you will render my existence insignificant so I can move on and maybe be normal."

Some time later the Gael fury appeared over the attacking Zenebas army seeming as if their god had come to shine praises on them. Then it began attacking them with everything, ripping apart thousands of Zoids with its several minute constant assault ending in a massive charged particle cannon through the middle of the enemy force. Then the zoid went soaring towards an Ultrasaurus at the back of the group. Firing its weapons towards the Ultrasaurus, some shots hitting, some missing. Then there was a line opened. A face appeared, recognizing it as the face of the normal pilot the General Sammael (he's back) shouted, "12519 what are you doing attack your own units! Stop this now damnit!"

Tom grinned, "I'm not '12519' I'm hell itself ready to ravage your assault. The past has come back to haunt you. You should know this if you've researched the Gael fury legends thoroughly enough."

"The beast was finally taken down by a champion of great might. At which time it was used by that champion as the greatest weapon against our enemies. The light of the mother shone brightly upon our foes that day."

-Zoidian record, 'the Gael chronicles, the final chapter'-

Heading straight towards the Ultrasaurus tom began to charge of the Charged particle cannon. Once he was ready the Gael Fury's speed doubled.

On the open channel shouts of, "12519 what the hell are you doing!?!" Could be heard. Tom ignored them He charged at the head of the Ultrasaurus, and making a small prayer for those already dead and those about to die tom fired the charged particle cannon immediately after impacting the Ultrasaurus. The explosion that resulted dissolved everything for miles around.

(End of the sub-plot)

Elsewhere the self appropriated 'rescue squad' had run into tom's command wolf which was lumbering along. With John and Perrone shifting to it from their overcrowded zoid cockpits in the reddler and Blade liger they realized the command wolf had been set on auto pilot all the way to Mount St. Helens. It had a written message recorded onto it. One from tom.

_I'm just a relic from an older age which has revealed its knowledge. I don't need to live. Reddy, John, you my zoid. All of you are of the current age and need to help it progress. I would like to live and play my part out further, but since my most important role is done…_

That was the message's text. It ended there. But there was a voice part too, "I CAN PUT EVERYTHING EVEN MY VERY LIFE INTO THIS ONE ATTACK!"

Then they saw the explosion of the Ultrasaurus.

-End-

Aww… The hero makes a noble sacrifice. Or does he? Read the next chapter to find out. (Spoiler alert, do not select the following text unless you have read my other Zoids fic dysfunctional families) Because you know he didn't because I said so at the beginning of the chapter and have included tom in Dysfunctional families.

Anyways this is the last chapter for our guessing game so someone better guess. PLEASE GUESS SOMEONE!

Random notes, Sammael dies there in that explosion. He never was important he just alluded to more important stuff. Also I ended the sub-plot, which was the resurrection of the Gael fury, the ancient evil zoid that could do something big in the wrong hands. Yep, that was it.

And I wrote the last 3/4th's of this chapter while listening to the .hack//gu song "Gentle hands" which sounds a lot like the end of a video game theme where the hero beats his enemy because he has found his purpose in whatever it is he is doing. This is how I feel about this chapter. So I think the music fits perfectly. And as an aside, that attack he does to the side of the zoid is the tri-edge attack from .hack//gu. Which is just a side effect of listening to that song so much.


	7. Chapter 7

-Rebirth of the Guardians – the long awaited sequel to chapter 6.

Chapter 7 – the sole survivor

IT SNOWED ON DECEMBER SECOND WHERE I LIVE

YAY!

AND ON DECEMBER FIFTH, INTERNATIONAL DAY OF THE NINJA

YAY NINJA!

And on December seventh. MORE SNOW YAY!

-Begin-

It was cloudy, when he opened his eyes it seemed like it was night. The clouds were dark and seemed ready to release rain at any moment. But why should he care about that, he just… he just… What did he just do and was it of any importance? Who was he? No he was tom. That had been true for ages. What had he done? Tom remembered the explosion, and the doubt he felt that he would survive. But then he became aware, sore all over and unusually tired, he had survived painful things before and the soreness was to be expected, but the tiredness on this level was new. He was so tired opening his eyes was a massive effort. But each sensation motivated him further, while he had been prepared to die before now that he was alive, and in one perfectly fine piece, he was ready to live some more and still protect those who were his responsibility, "The responsibility of those of the past…" Tom trailed off.

It was going to be hell to move.

-It has often been debated about how the ghost fox survived the Ultrasaurus explosion. The question is mostly one not about the fox himself but how does one survive the explosion. With his true identity revealed after the war it was plausible that he could have used any of the earth technologies that we were un-able to create that he had and no-one knew about. But what are the odds of a technology like that existing and us not knowing about it?-

History of the Great Zenebas war, short extract

The small rescue party continued after the single object that they saw flying out from the explosion. There was an odd feeling that if anyone could survive that they would know something about what happened. And with reddy being the one to realize that the Gael fury had something to do with that explosion and tom being one fighting the Gael fury, the pieces naturally fell into place after some time.

Tom managed to make that explosion.

Because of who he was and what he had survived in the past everyone assumed the only person who would survive that could be him, it was more of a faith thing than actually reasoning, as no-one could picture him dead. Well they began to move.

But it was to no avail. Once they got over the next hill they saw the invasion force, and the invasion force saw them. As any massive force would do when faced with an enemy force of three when the total attacking force was 500,000 and there was the head of a larger than normal Ultrasaurus poking over the horizon even as the explosion that took out another faded away, they ignored the three. The valley, or rather the wide minor vertical depression, covered some three miles across. It was choked tight with Zoids. A long ways away the first sounds of battle could be heard.

Standing on the hill being ignored despite obviously being enemies Relena was obligated to make a decision. This obligation was pressed on harder by that very question, "So what is the plan of attack or run away?"

Relena looked at the force. "I don't know. I won't give up on tom no matter what, but charging into this. Well it's the same thing in my eye." She bit her lip as she looked at the situation. "Damn that bastard for landing somewhere in the on the other side of the lines!" She began looking over her map for a better place to cross, a bridge over the gap was best, but just a more narrow valley was fine too.

John began to move forwards. "What are you doing!?!" Relena reprimanded him.

John stopped, "Tom talked about him wanting to teach the people. I've seen him go into battles that he could not win, and I've been with him. One thing I learned was that he was a psycho. Another was to stick firm to what you believe. The third was once you've found your belief exert all energy you dare into following that belief. So now I'm doing that, I'm taking a run for it. I'm ready to fight but not ready to run in all guns blazing. I'm hoping that they'll continue ignoring us. If not then we give em' hell. Reddy will act as our prime tom scouter in the worst case scenario. I'll be second since the command wolf can go invisible. Relena you go between us and just try to live if they attack. But no-one fire first unless you are 100 certain they'll try and kill you."

Relena bit back any mean comment she had been preparing. John had a plausible plan A. His plan B sucked, but the way plan A was set up plan B was just a dumb accessory. "Fine, but you're gonna have to keep up with a blade liger and a top of the line Tom styled black reddler. And you're only using a command wolf? I have doubt you can trail behind us even barely."

John chuckled, "I severely doubt you could outrun this command wolf in its current state if you're blade liger was the one used by the hero Van flyheight. Reddy, open up a channel to the enemy group, if they ask make an excuse to why we're crossing. Do something along the lines of reported armed humans. If anyone asks say you don't believe it and you're only going because you have to."

"Well that's what it amounts to anyway." Reddy said with a sigh as he opened a channel. "Okay, I've got our alibi, if anyone can check this out then we're screwed beyond belief, and I don't mean just right here right now."

"Right." John murmured knowingly. Then the two land based Zoids went down towards the canyon. As the stormsworder used its superior maneuverability to get out of the way of the enemy aerial forces, albeit those being proportionally small. The trio of Zoids got through without reddy having to say a word.

"Thank god." John breathed once they were past the traffic laden valley an hour later. "If we were to have fought we'd all be dead, sure we'd block off the valley at least partially, somehow, but still that be nothing to what they could throw at us."

"God I'm just glad at least half of these things are computer controlled. The entire first wave was mass produced piloting AI's so they wouldn't think about stopping any of the few humans out and about from traveling. But if the humans were to have attacked one of them, well then they'd be screwed."

"What this isn't the first wave?" Relena asked.

"No this is the second, possibly third, but neither has any elites. All of the first three waves are cannon fodder. The groups to worry about are on or in line with the Ultrasaurus. They are the second largest group after the massive third wave. And the best."

Fred appeared over the group. "I think I know where about's he's landed, but I can't see him at all because of thick ground cover. I'll need help in finding him."

"Right, everyone rush to tom, anyone who shoots you is dead." Relena said as the blade liger accelerated after Fred. The black reddler jumped after Fred too, quickly catching up to the blade liger and passing it.

John waited a full minute until his partner, Perrone, shouted, "What the hell are you doing! We'll loose them at this rate retard!"

"Oh it's just that Tom removed some zoid restraint, and now this baby would loose them first." John said, "They needed a lead for it to be fair." Then John tapped into the command wolves still near Lightning Saix speed potential. Quickly he caught up to the rest, and then passed all save Fred. "Come on, I'm just the apprentice, and I'm passing the master?"

To which Fred replied, "The master tends to hold back on the student because he know how lame the student is."

"Fair enough." John sighed as he became focused on the mission once more.

Meanwhile some hours later Tom had finally gotten to the point of being able to stand, he had gotten some water down his throat and a bit of food in his belly. It was enough for him to stand now. He had inspected his body. He had been stark naked for a bit but now had clothes from an abandoned house in a town somewhere. The food and water had come from various abandoned buildings. Tom was still a little woozy and not sure of how far he could walk, but he felt certain of his ability to live at least long enough to be able to return to running strength. He wouldn't be able to fight the invasion properly now, not with black one within unable to fight, and himself as weak as it stands, but he could run and fight back another day. "The responsibility of those of the past…" The phrase was his rallying cry, he couldn't end it his memory was still fragmented so. Well the past 8 months were really fragmented, the further back from there the more discernable they were. But still he wasn't sure what his sentence ender was to that. So he pondered that and other things.

It was gonna be hell to escape.

Now detecting no major groups of enemies and getting the occasional radio report about the front line battle, all of which dealt with the Guardian force loosing ground the rescue squad felt motivated to move even faster. Running boosters at a rate where they could keep going constantly the two land Zoids were making good time. The storm sworder was going a hair under the sound barrier and reddy was going almost as fast in the super custom black reddler. But all three were moving towards their target.

Finally they found the spot where he landed, a massive impact crater, along with a second smaller one, then a skid line where something skid some thirty feet to a stop at a rock. Then his footsteps could be seen heading towards the probable location of where an enemy would be, to the north. But it also was in the direction of a town too.

"Why did he head that way?" Relena asked as she and others looked at the footprints on the ground.

"My guess is that he was too dazed to care." Reddy said. "I know what the Gael fury looks like and I know what that explosion looked like. The fact that he's alive is amazing enough; alive and walking is another level of endurance."

"Endurance?" Fred said staring at the kid, "It's called superpowers. That blast destroyed and Ultrasaurus and hundreds of Zoids. It also killed thousands of people, for tom to be at the heart of the explosion and live is the work of superpowers."

"Really Fred." John said as he looked to the north, "I didn't think you'd be the type to believe in that stuff."

"I wasn't." Fred sighed, "Whoever that is just converted me." Fred pointed to the tracks walking away."

"As an aside his clothes aren't as durable as him." John added, "I know tracking skills from back home and since he's got bare feet I'm guessing he's got bare everywhere."

Relena blushed visibly. That scene would be awkward if she were to encounter him. "Well we need to find him fast, unless he's got shelter in that town he may not last the coming storm, or invasion." She said giving orders to calm herself.

When she got into the blade liger Devon saw her blushing, and being assigned with her for some time he knew the general scope of what would be affecting her. "Who's gonna be naked?" He asked after making sure the transmitter wouldn't work.

"Tom." Relena sighed.

"Oh that's all, I thought it might be someone you don't want to see nude." Devon laughed.

"Shut up you bastard!" Relena shouted, "Drive this thing north to the nearest village. Either we find him on the way dead or he got to town and lived."

"Right." Devon murmured setting the Blade liger into a non-booster run, "I'll keep him at a lower speed as to try and catch tom."

"Good." Relena said, "Reddy and Fred are going to the town. If they find him then we get there ASAP."

"Right." Devon said already in scan the screen mode.

It took a mere three minutes for Fred to arrive in the town. But despite all the searching by him and reddy there was no sign of life in the little village. A couple of times both of them thought they might have seen something in the alleyways but more often then not it was an inanimate object, sometimes a cat, if they were lucky. But not once did tom manage to appear, even with the black reddler using its most sophisticated scanning technology they picked up not a thing. Finally landing in a town square the two Zoid pilots got out and after a brief communication relay to the group leader they took off into the town to see if they could find tom.

Meanwhile the two land based Zoids slowly continued on keeping the footprints still within sight and no sign of human life present other than their own. Finally after an extended search period they reached the town at which point they met Fred by the footprints at the entrance to the town. "Greetings." He said. "We've found what appear to be his tracks and we've lost them in the town. Unfortunately they lead into a house as feet and exit as shoes. We don't know this for sure but due to a lack of footprints with an actual foot and instead 'shoe prints' which are everywhere, and the fact that we have yet to find a body, dead or alive, means that he's somewhere around here."

"Where should we leave our Zoids?"

"Somewhere in town a bit, there's a repair shop we passed why not try there?"

"Right, meet us there." Then the two Zoids took off in the direction Fred indicated.

Tom looked at his rescue squad. Since his memories a) hadn't been totally shattered by any means and b) had had time to at least partially re-assemble, tom knew who they were. While he didn't technically know why they were there, nor how when and why John and reddy had left his command wolf, though he had to guess that they had something to do with the rescue party. Tom had tried to stand up when the reddler and Storm sworder passed within sight of his diner window, but he couldn't move for shit. Since then he had been trying to move, his body seeming to try and reject the possibility. Just a moment ago he had been able to get up. He had taken two steps forwards, and behind him lay a mess of sweat blood and other bodily fluids forcibly brought out. Tom had no idea his body was able to go through all those different physical ranges of pain and pleasure at once. It had been a mental gang rape on his psyche via his nervous system and his constant mental bickering based upon these unnatural body reactions to simply walking. But he kept on going, "The responsibility of those of the past…"

It was gonna be hell to walk.

"Well these are the buildings we have searched thus far." Reddy said pointing to buildings in red on a map. "This one is town hall, and where we got the map. Also we locked the door on all the residential building we searched save the first one tom entered. So hopefully he won't be able to enter any of these and we won't have to search through them twice because we don't have the numbers." Reddy pointed out building in green. "All these are food establishments. My guess is since tom is a human being he has to eat, and if he can re-generate well I figure he needs to replenish after re-building from nothing."

"That's all?" Relena asked.

"Yep." Reddy sighed. "You got more major?"

"No." She sighed, "We'd better get searching, don't rush yourselves, I doubt the base is still in one piece. It'll be a miracle if they're still alive. A sign of victory if they still have the base under their control." Relena sighed; the situation had been out of her control for quite some time now. She had no doubt that they were all dead, as unfortunate as it was. Reddy's description of the attack plan and the first had seeing of the attacking army herself had convinced her of that.

"Well I guess we should start with searching the eateries closest to here and closest to where Tom was last confirmed to be." John sighed, "This sucks. Normally a town like this would only be destroyed by a force this small, not nit-picked clean."

"Then don't." A voice said from the doorway. "Congratulations for finding me." That voice said louder still.

-A few moments before-

He walked to the repair place. There he saw a blade liger, new to his eyes, a reddler, a storm sworder and a command wolf, his command wolf. _You're still alive, as tough to kill as me… heh…_ Tom sighed to himself. He had to congratulate the group of whomever for getting to this town; he had been greatly relocated from anywhere near where the gang must have assumed he would be. Also they must have had to cross through around or over massive enemy troop formations. Whether or not they fought their way through it was a miracle that they survived. Hell it was a miracle that he survived. But I guess since they weren't anywhere as near as special as he was their survival counted for more. "The responsibility of those of the past…" Dumb phrase, why did he just say that phrase and not do anything? Well now he was gonna do something.

"Then don't." He said catching the tail end of the conversation. "Congratulations for finding me." They ran over to the man who seemed to have appeared like a savior out of a vision. "Do I have a lot to tell you guys." He sighed. "Perrone, that story deal that I made with you, now would be the time I choose to cash it in."

-End-

Well next chapter you get to find out what tom actually is, and since thus far no-one has took any guesses I'll assume it's gonna be a big surprise. Also next chapter will give you my take on the history of the Zoids world.


	8. Chapter 8

-Rebirth of the Guardians – the long awaited sequel to chapter – 7

Chapter 8 – The past

Well here ya go. This chapter is gonna be fancy cause it features dark Zenebas lord who has yet to have any role whatsoever. Guess what, he won't play a significant story specific role. He'll just make minor appearances in this fic, cause like I said any typical main plot is pushed to the background in this fan-fic.

And yes I do realize the 'emperor' is very prozen-esque. But come on Zoid CC came up with an excellent villain of the highest caliber when they made him. That and he's a Zoids icon.

-Begin-

"Peoples of the soon to be non-existent Helic Republic and Guylos Empire. We the people of Zenebas have been preparing for this day a long time and we feel that it is the time for reckoning on you're inferior bodies and souls. I make this announcement at the head of a massive assault force directed largely against you're countries northern war fronts, but our armies rapidly advancing down upon you're countries northern borders so that we can tear you armies apart. Do not fear, we of the Zenebas have already spared perhaps a million civilian lives. All that we ask of the common folk who wish not to die is to listen to our words and leave the cities and military occupied towns you are in and if you remain surrender to our armies on sight. Then we will evacuate you all temporarily to a site while the front extends south."

-Excerpt from legendary Zenebas 'surrender' speech transmitted to the leaders of both nations intended to be released to the public but held back from almost all the people during the war-

Chancellor Lazar Kaganovitch of the soon to be Zenebas Empire sat down after filming the final take of his surrender speech. He doubted it would go out to the public in the Helic republic and Guylos Empire but that was no worry of him. Once the war was over those recordings would be a perfect thing to hold over the conquered peoples heads and destroy their morale. At the absolute worst the decision would have a neutral effect, splitting the country into resistance and deniers. Split along the lines of what would be the assumed number of rebels and loyal followers once the war was over. That would possibly be better still because the targets and the not-targets would all stay apart. And that would help because when not-targets got targeted other not-targets tended to become targets.

Such were the thoughts of the man who considered himself ready to rule the world. A man of larger build he had silver/white hair that changed in color depending on the light. His face and whole body was a tad pale, but not an overly noticeable shade of glowing white. He wore a grand cape, merely as a symbol he personally didn't care for the thing, as well as various garments in the style of various other rulers throughout time. Much of his garb consisted of that of famous earth rulers. Despite over half of them having been despised on earth the effect they had on Zi was much more positive than imagined. There were a few Zoidian rulers; prozen was definite influence on his choice of garb during the speech filming. At his side was a very prominent icon herself. The last full blood earth woman. A woman of intelligence far greater than he could ever achieve as well as strength and beauty she was the ideal partner for someone like him. In every which way you phrased the term.

His only regret was that the other human female, who was almost as gorgeous as the woman who was his trophy, had to disappeared shortly after leaving the scientific world. Well there was another regret. The last human male had survived, and disappeared. As an ally he would have been an amazing choice. The man had been a top class earth general and had quickly show adeptness to just about anything. As well as the ability to disappear. That damn bastard had simply become one of the population and despite knowing that he only made small identity changed for a month or three while he was free after a while he made one massive change and he was lost to the world. Now he may be dead, which seemed like the most likely possibility. Also the most favorable. Because unlike his current earthling the other one showed a strong moral sense and a plain dislike of Lazar then, and in various encounters throughout the years, all indirect, had managed to be the single most damaging person to his image. Although he had learned the lesson that knowledge was powerful for anyone if used in the right way. This was when the first video feed had been hacked into any number of devices and placed in millions of places on the internet. That accursed first video still surfaced from time to time.

However these propaganda attacks had slowed greatly and at the beginning of war finally stopped, within the nation of Zenebas anyway. But honestly Lazar was content to live with that because he now was going to crush those places where anti Lazar propaganda was wide spread and he was going to see, first hand thanks to his massive Ultrasaurus, what propaganda could do against missiles, a charged particle beam, or perhaps even a gravity cannon. Lazar smiled, and that stupid ghost fox, the re-incarnation of the earth boy, had been killed. True he had taken the Gael fury an Ultrasaurus and countless other Zoids with him but that all could be turned to his advantage, which seemed to be happening thus-so-far.

-Elsewhere-

Tom sighed, he had had a long day, and now that he had gone to sleep right after entering the shop he knew there was going to be a story day all day today. Why all day? Because the story was that Damn long. He sighed; his story took 8 years to tell last time how long would it take now? He got up from his bed. Fully clothed with clothes he took from an abandoned house and more importantly not clothed in a revealing uniform (revealing in the sense that it betrays who he is, a guardian force soldier) tom had encouraged for the others to do the same save reddy that had a Zenebas uniform on already.

Tom chuckled; he had woken up for their eventual return. And with knowledge of his measurements they had returned with two extra sets of clothes for him. He had laughed at some of their choices saying that they reflected on how little fashion some of them had. While chef Perrone had gotten another chef's outfit, as would be expected. Also Relena was now wearing very revealing clothes. Tom had managed to take advantage of this by looking at her last, and taking long very intensive looks over what everyone else wore. When he was done with the very, very close observation he laughed and said that if anyone were to recognize them as soldiers they should get a medal for having a perfect photographic memory. No-one understood him when he said that. Nor were they totally certain of their behavior. Tom had picked up conversations about whether or not the explosion had affected his psyche and had personally, thus-so-far privately, come to the conclusion that it had, but not in a way that he could determine as of now.

Finally after reflection and focusing mentally on what was now and what he should work on improving he got up and went down to what had been the repair centers lounge. "Everyone," Tom sighed he knew what would come at some point in the near future, "I have a story to tell you all. Especially Perrone, since I made a deal with him and all. It is not you're average story, but rather two. It also does not follow absolute chronological order, starting 11,000 years ago instead of the longer time of 14,000 years ago. It won't be the happiest story and it will seem odd and hard to believe at times to you, but I tell you this, it is all true every last word." He now had their attention, like he had done once before over 20 years ago. Save then there had been one story, because he didn't know of the second one himself.

-Begin story- (story told with Tom serving largely as narrator)

The first story begins with a small prologue 11,723 years ago to the year with the globally 3. The globally 3, as you all should know, was a colonization ship sent out by earth to find new planets in the galaxy. After some point Earth stopped receiving communications with the globally three about 500 years later. Well weren't they lucky that I was 18 at the time. And in an earth trying to create colonies further and further away from the solar system they were lucky that I was an amazing general, as well as general leader and the fact that I was a veritable genius. Having located a legendary ship called 'the venture' created some three hundred years before the globally three launched and having rumored to have been made by a being considered to be the most powerful being ever in existence in an instant at the height of his power the ship proved to be more advanced that any other ship of the time. Well once designated as commander I took off in the ship after the Globally 3.

Let me just give you an image of what earth was like 500 years after the globally 3 left and you ZI residents have you're last actual account of the mother planet.

Earth then was amazing, because almost all industry had been transferred into space there was next to no pollution being added to the earth's atmosphere. And with 380 years to clean up since the last major industry being moved to outer space it was rather nice to live there. Earth in this era was surprisingly more natural than that of the globally era. Again with industry in space and many space colonies, including those which colonized whole planets almost halfway across the Galaxy the population on earth was a mere 3 billion. There was no need to use the manufacturing land that had been opened up for housing, so in a maneuver that surprised the world many factories closed in the last 20 years of earth manufacturing were allowed to remain whole. Some were left just to be naturally overgrown to save money for the big-wigs. Others became tourist destinations and backup factories were earth to face a crisis that endangered its survival and it needed the factories for production.

However while earth was in chemical pollution free relative harmony it was not in political harmony. While the planet itself rarely saw major armed conflict space was frivolous with these battles. The few wars that went to earth were all started by earthen countries. In the last one of these to my knowledge was where I showed my prowess at the age of 16. There I, a young military officer of middling rank, took command of entire divisions due to breakdown of rank and led human units on earth, mobile armor units in space, armored units in colonies, massive AI invasion forces on earth and space, and more in the most brutal war humanity had seen since the era before the launch of the globally spacecraft. In fact the creation of those craft had been an idea of those wishing to escape the war and create a new haven for humanity.

Well that being besides the point I was joined by three capable women, Sylvia Reinhart and Chezneckia Dorell. Both of whom I had been in intimate relations with before, during the war. They had all been powerful war leaders, although Chezneckia being for the losing side, the one that I had opposed and fought against so violently. The three of us were given the task of following the globally 3 and finding the last point of existence, if it were to have been destroyed. I was given, 'the voyager', Sylvia and Chezneckia each a globally, the globally 4 and 5. So we traveled. Finding point along the way where the Globally 3 had left behind markers to where it went. We followed those until we had reached out last and longest hyper jump.

It had taken us over 3,000 earth years but due to the hyper jump technology we had yet to age more than a few months. Although this last jump, which at that point we felt might not be last, was destined to be the longest. We thus all were forced to enter the cold sleep capsules in order to keep us from aging and possibly dying as we had before each other jump.

Before the final jump I had Sylvia and Chezneckia both sent to my ship and placed into the sleep onboard. I will always be glad I did.

Now before I discussed what exactly happened I'll tell you what the capsules did while you were asleep. Before entering the capsule for an extended earth period of time one was supposed to attach electrical nodes to one's head. These would help you're mind focus as time passed inside the capsule. They all contained the history of earth, as well as creation area to create new devices and other various things. Another thing was that you had IV tubes placed into veins to strengthen your body. This way you could become stronger while still not moving a muscle.

But again, that's beside the point. Anyway we all moved towards the next set of coordinates, but then something happened upon arrival. Just before we came out of the jump the two globally ships impacted Zi's moon. The odd thing was that impacting something while in jump was supposed to be impossible. The computer was even supposed to take something out of Jump if hitting an object was that certain. Well the two globally's were lost entirely. And while I don't know this for certain I do vaguely remembered while in the ship with the two women I had loved the most to either side of me mentally I recoiled at the luck I had had in saving them, but I also cursed whatever error I had made in killing off the crew of both ships.

And incidentally a large portion of the Zoidian population. For you see the items that impacted Zi's moons during the great impact was the Globally 4 and 5, not a meteor as was suspected. This combined with the deathsaurer blasting out some 2/3rds of the massive zoidian civilization eliminated the ancient Zoidians.

Being the one who set the hyper jump parameters for that jump, as well as assigning coordinates and doing essentially every single maintenance for that jump I can't but feel responsible that I killed off the zoidian race.

Well 'the voyager' floated in space for some 4,500 years. It was much later that we learned that the Globally 3 had landed on the planet 500 years before us and that it was there it had colonized. During those 4,500 years, plus the ages in the jump, I along with everyone else on the ship, sat in stasis pods waiting for the computer to awake us. Which it did not due to an apparent malfunction.

Now after witnessing countless events influenced by the destruction of the Zoidian race by some error on my part finally some rock impacted 'the voyager' and caused it head towards the Moons surface. The computer, recognizing danger, ejected the stasis pods. However due to angle all of the port pods were destroyed and the inhabitants killed instantly. The starboard pods were partially destroyed during the space travel, and most of the rest were destroyed in re-entry and impact. The status of the ship is beyond me. Well in the end only three survived. Myself, obviously, and my two companions. For 8 years we were cross examined giving up large portions of our knowledge of earth. Allowed only each other for company, well lets just say well all became much better acquainted…

Finally after 8 years the question was asked that had all the scientists puzzled. Why had none of us aged over 8 years? The answer, as best as I can guess, is because those stasis pods stopped our aging entirely for several years after being stuck in them for so long. Well after 9 years, including 1 year of medical examination I was released. Along with the other two.

Well after all this time we had become big stars. Unfortunately we became big HUMAN stars. And this drew a bone with the large part zoidian population that currently inhabited Zi. Despite over 2/3rds of their civilization gone perhaps a billion Zoidians have survived the impact and deathsaurer still appearing even now. The pure Zoidians who remembered they were rarely treated us with more than contempt. Poor Sylvia saved a gang from some bandits. Every last one was part Zoidian. They killed the girl. She however fended off them in their Zoids, all 30, for over 1 hour. Near 11,000 years in suspended animation with stimulants pumping through you had their effect. Also she, I and Chezneckia all have one person only earth technology that we still use. Mine includes my belt, which I hope to explain later.

Myself I moved around, none of the three of us aging for until we spent 17 years out of the Pods. I think the Chezneckia had found her home in Zenebas as someone political. I became the legendary black dragon, the zoid warrior. As you should like to know. And I did in by only changing my last name 90 of the time. Finally at the outbreak of war, being someone who witnessed thousands of wars in his own mind, I took the side I felt was right and fought. That is how I became who I am now. Well at least partially.

-End story 1-

The story had taken up several hours with various descriptions given to the group in front of him for the sake of tom being vain. Finally after the after process which was a day of answering questions tom prepared his second, much shorter, story.

"My second story," Tom began, "Is much shorter and begins 14,000 years ago. It is more like a history lesson. It is also more relevant to you all because it has to deal entirely with the history of Zi."

-Story 2-

For as long as the records indicate, up until 14,000 years ago or so there was a second race on Zi known as the Kami. They were a race that commanded the powerful nature. But they were few in number and many were willing to support the Zoidians, and vice-versa. The two races battled each other in an ageless war that seemed to have no end. Then long ago one man who wielded the power of hellfire, kokuhso, went to the Zoidian elders and provided them with a way to defeat all the Kami forever. He said that he could provide them with a way to seal the Kami from the physical plane using special spells to keep them as souls, forever.

And thus Kokuhso sold out his race but gained immortality in exchange for only being a soul.

Or so the Zoidians thought.

Kokuhso was smart and he knew at some point the Zoidians would win. They had developed many items that were lethal weapons against the Kami. He had written the spells with certain things in mind. First would be that the Kami souls could not inhabit Zoidians. Second, on the off chance that some other race would show up magically they could not inhabit a race that had ten generations consuming food grown on Zi. Also with each progressive generation from the first untainted one their power would be weakened. And the last part was that the Kami, if in a body, could not to violence on any Zoidian holy ground. Unless they had permission from a zoidian to do so. This was almost useless because the Zoidians had no idea of this element of the contract.

Well some long time ago humans arrived on Zi. For many years the Kami inhabited their bodies. All those not loyal to kokuhso and his way of preserving life worked to create things like the deathsaurer and other evil Zoids. However eventually 10 generations passed and the Kami once again had only the rare genetic fluke to inhabit bodies. But then 20 years ago three pure bodies came. Each had a spirit. Kokuhso went inside me, Yosei inside either Sylvia or Chezneckia. Yosei had been Kokuhso's mortal foe while she lived. And remained so after death. However a third power that had been created since the banishment of all the Kami appeared and with some 5,000 years of power it inhabited or may still inhabit one of the girls.

To this day I still do not know who all I know is that we are destined to battle.

-End story 2-

-End-

All right, I'll bet right now almost all of you are like WTF mate? Well I can understand. And don't worry if anyone finds this odd I've already got a plan to get rid of Kokuhso to a larger extent anyways. At the very least he'll be diminished. At the most he'll be written out. How will I determine this? Well it'll be all up to my whim unless I get some reviews giving me a direction to go in. So my odds are on diminished GREATLY right now. But this may change in 20 minutes for all I know. So if you've actually got an opinion and feel like sharing, please do, PLEASE!


	9. Chapter 9

-Rebirth of the Guardians – the long awaited sequel to chapter – 8

Chapter 9 – the present

Well um… read it.

-Begin-

The day after he finished telling his second, much shorter but much more open story Tom finally opened up mental communications with Kokuhso, this was the first time tom has ever had a 2 way conversation with the fellow who possessed a soul with him so for him it was a unique experience.

**Hello. **Tom thought kind of directing his thought at the part of him where he had gotten Kokuhso's history from. True it was mostly the subconscious but…

**Greetings stranger. **A taunting dark voice returned. Tom pouted. **Well now that you recognize that I exist, finally, I've got something to tell you.**

**What?** Tom was confused to say the least. A minute in conversation and already his tone indicated that he had something big lined up.

Ignoring the blatantly obvious confusion in Tom's thoughts Kokuhso continued. **Well you see when I possessed you're body, Yosei took over one of the other girls and that odd energy force took over the third I realized I had to do something.**

Tom was really perplexed. All of the sudden tom was ready to acknowledge that Kokuhso existed as a human being and now he was talking like it was his last will and testament. **Continue. **Tom thought more politely than he felt. Honestly now he was willing to converse and the guy sounded as if he was going to die.

**Not far off. **Kokuhso added on to tom's thoughts. Tom wasn't stupid; Kokuhso could read his _every _thought. Well then he should be able to interpret the agitated mass of every thought he had come up with in the past three minutes, which were more than enough to keep the average person busy with trying to swat away the mild annoyance. That is assuming one could communicate telepathically with the average person.

**Well since you seem pissed I'll ask.**

**Smart. **Tom replied.

**Well anyways, it took me 14,000 years. No wait less, 9,500 or so, to realize when I banished the Kami I did the wrong thing.**

Tom sighed, he had sent Kokuhso the same barrage of thoughts several times during many of the one sided conversations the two had over the years **Well how do you plan to make up for it?**

Kokuhso laughed, **By making the Kami immortal and capable of interacting with the world at the same time.**

**Brilliant, let's start a war, no lets start a nuclear war.** Tom groaned out.

**No I mean without bodies, save for myself of course.**

**Of course.**

**Tell you the truth the Kami, for a long, long time, were not that different from the Zoidians.**

**Of course you were all one protoplasmic entity.**

**After that.**

**You were all sponges?**

**Later still. For the longest time we were all one type of life form. But at one point eons ago we became split over power sources. The Kami used the energies of the land to cast magic spells. The Zoidians, well they used zoid eve. Well silly me and my magical sealing contract that saved the zoidian race and Damned the Kami. Um…**

**"Um…" what?**

**Well I sealed every ounce of the energy of the land in with that contract. And since the Kami weren't capable of using all the energy of the planet, not even if every living thing on the planet had as much power as me would that be true, the remainder became bound to that contract just as the rest of the Kami have.**

**I've been through too much earth cinematographic history to not see what's coming next. That energy has adopted a sentient nature and it's a bad one, correct?**

**You hit the nail on the head.**

**GRAND. **Tom also spoke this, he drawled out the thinking and the speaking of this so that each letter had emphasis.

**Yep ain't it. Well anyways I had made another contract and purposely left it with the Zoidians in the case of a scenario where it would be needed. THANK GOD I DID. I won't give you all the details of how it does what it does but what it basically does it release the souls from this accursed purgatory we're stuck in forever and returns us, and hopefully the dormant energy of the land, to the land. I say hopefully because it only partially affects those of us who are stuck in bodies. We retain 3/5****th****'s of our power in our host forms.**

**Well 2/5****th****'s of a planets energy should be enough, right?**

**Maybe. You see Zi's energy has gained a generally more spiteful nature. Because it picked up the general temperament of the Kami, the other energies it was sealed with. Now I don't know about you but I don't want to deal with a pissed off planet do you.**

**I don't know if it matters, I've committed genocide and you have too. I think if I were to face a zoidian I might kill myself.**

**Well there is a difference between what you and I did. I made my people just spirits and removed their bodies from existence. You're error was a simple accident which you seriously could do nothing yourself to stop, even had you not been in cold sleep. But unlike you I didn't actually kill anyone directly.**

**Shut up.**

**Alright, well anyway in order to do this sealing thing I need a physical form and massive amounts of power. I.E. I need to be in a first generation human, what do you know you're one!**

**W00t.**

**Well anyway, I'm not saying do it now, I know you're busy and all. But at least you should try and grab the contract while we're close by.**

**'Close by'?**

**You know that buried city you passed on the way to fight the Gael fury?**

**Yes.**

**It's in there.**

Tom blinked. The solution to this all was in that place. Well actually it wouldn't be that bad an idea. The Zenebas empire had shown and awkward Reverence for the Zoidian race. They would be sure to leave the Site alone. And worst comes to worse they wouldn't flatten it like they would if they found out Tom was in this town. **Fine then. I can take the others right?**

**Yep. This isn't one of those stupid plots where you have to face it alone or something. You can if you desire, or you can take them all with you.**

**Right, that's our next plan. I'll go see if I can influence them in any way to head there.**

**You're argument seems sound, use that.**

**Stop reading my mind.**

**No, I enjoy a challenge you've been alive almost as long as I have so there's some resistance in trying to pry into your mind.**

Tom grinned; he already had more mental barriers erected just for the spirit in his head than that thing would ever know.

Tom walked down to the eating area where everyone was eating a breakfast from the next door food place. "Morning all." He said. It was a small miracle he didn't get all around bowing. It had been the level the first scientists that encountered him naked in a field had done. Although that actually was because of a case of mistaken identity. They thought he was some member of an ancient zoidian race that had survived on the moon, or something. Tom had later learned that what had thrown the ship out of orbit had been some sort of probe that had been sent to investigate the suddenly noticeable ship. Well that was un-important what mattered now was getting those scrolls and weakening the near all powerful spirit in his body –**HEY**!-

Tom swore kokuhso sighed, **What? ** He spoke sounding annoyed.

**I really kind of need you at a high level of power until this war is over, after that well then feel free to do as you please, but is this necessary now?**

**Finding the text yes. Why you may ask, because if a planet comes to kill us now we're screwed, if I use that spell hopefully, maybe, perhaps, it will loose it's sentient nature, and if were really lucky and it keeps the nature maybe it'll like us.**

**But do we need to use it now?**

**Well since you'll probably live to be 300 and your age won't affect my power in the least, and since I'm in you and can regenerate at will... Well I guess that would mean no.**

**So we just need to find the scroll in the case of a worst case scenario.**

**You have hit the nail on the head.**

**Would there be any other worst case scenarios?**

**Zoid eve in the hands of a madman.**

**Great I know of no mad-men who have an obsession with Zoidians and may be trying to obtain the power of zoid ever for themselves. **Tom sighed, that Zenebas Sonofa bitch we was going to have to die. And by his hands no doubt. Yet another to add to the thousands dead by his hands or decisions. God he had perhaps the most violent life of anyone on this planet. The most violent life ever was a title he was willing to give to dictators, w00t.

After a moment of mental composure over the order to do the next few events he was going to do and in what order he was going to do them. _Ok, first convince them to go to the ruins. Second get the scroll. Third escape the army. Then in the more general picture, beat this attacking army, do not die in the process, and use the scroll to release the spirits to the land. _Tom paused doing a double check, once he assumed the plan was far from fool-proof, not a plan in the real world sense of the term and sure that something would screw it up tom went through with the only phase he knew would work. "Guys," He started, Relena coughed, "and major bitch."

"HEY!" Relena exploded.

"We need to move sometime in the near future, I'm not saying today, but within three days would be ideal."

"Why should we listen to you?" Relena huffed.

"Because if we don't we will die." Tom said to the huffed up major. "I think that we need to find somewhere that the Zenebas will avoid under the assumption that it's something super sacred."

"Like?" John mumbled as he ate.

"A zoidian ruin."

John looked at him, "Why do you say one of those."

"Well, don't ask me why, but Zenebas passed a decree early in the war before anything happened that no Zenebas soldier could damage a Zoidian ruin without explicit orders from either the division leader or anyone higher in the chain of command. Now if that simply is just historical concern over 32 assaults of the Zenebas army can be argued to have been made solely for zoidian ruins. I mean hell they took a site which would was ideal to take after you surround the mountains around it and are certain that the enemy could not be able to easily break through the line of defense. But no they took the ruin in the middle of the small valley surrounded by mountains that were easy to blast into the ruin before they fully took the mountains surrounding it."

"Maybe…" Relena said still somewhat miffed about his earlier comment, "No never mind. They do like zoidian ruins."

"Exactly my point. They also like civilians, but we are not those now are we." Tom continued. "So if we were to hide here they would have no qualms about making this place dust. However if we were to hide in a zoidian ruin they would not flatten the thing, and I doubt they would send in Zoids just for a bunch of random guardian force members just hiding. Heck they might plain leave us alone if we said we'd just go."

"Go where?" Relena asked. "Where would we go once we left they'd kill us."

"Well I'm not saying leave of your own free will. I'm just saying the rules with Zenebas get a little different in Zoidian ruins." Tom prayed then that this was enough to get them moving, he still was dead tired and much more of an argument would un-doubtedly make him slip up. That slip would reveal an ulterior motive and thus, under normal circumstances, drop the odds of the plans success.

"I like it." John said as he poked at his random breakfast food.

"Nothing wrong with the plan." Reddy shrugged.

"I have one problem." Relena said to Tom wagging her finger.

_GREAT! _Tom sighed mentally, _The goddamn bitch has something to complain about, well then talk!_

"How the hell do we get past the enemy forces?" Relena said looking at Tom with an 'I've got you beat now' face.

"I go psycho on their asses." Tom replied calmly. "You know I can do enough damage to give us time to cross the river if they try and stop us. But by that same degree I suggest no-one go with me in my command wolf cause odds are 50-50 you'll die."

They all looked at him, "Why not you?" Someone asked.

"Look what I just survived. I don't think a little machine gun fire could do any worse." Tom took time to stare down everyone in the room. Ending with Relena, who was immediately below tom's very high up face, him being freakishly tall and her being not. Looking at her from above tom made a revelation, "If you guys want to live we need to do a few things, one change into civilian clothes. Two we need to paint over the Guardian force symbols on our Zoids; I'll need to change the paint scheme of mine entirely. If we don't we won't have a chance of surviving."

"Well then mister super human," Relena continued, "If you're so great then why don't you obliterate the entire army?"

"I thought we covered that, I can't use anything other than regeneration inside a holy ground."

"So how are you going to beat them?"

"I have plenty of other tricks." Tom said. "These include the tricks of one device…" tom trailed off as he felt for his belt. "SHIT! Where's my belt!"

"So what? It's a belt." Reddy asked. "I don't want to have to go back to the front just for that. And besides you had it with you when you were piloting the command wolf. Oh wait, I doubt you took it off ever did you?"

"No why?"

"It was utterly destroyed in all probability in the explosion."

"Great now I need to go get the other one I have at the base." Tom sighed, he never wanted to use that one himself for sentimental reasons, but I guess saving the world is more important. "We're only about a day's walk for me from the base. But you guys would take forever." Tom sighed. "I'll get some weapons and run back. I doubt the guys held out this long; it's been several days now. They should have retreated or something so the enemy should have left the thing alone. If not I should be out of range of the ruin and be able to blast the enemies with un-holy hellfire. So I'll be fine. I'll go to help them."

"I've got a question." Reddy said.

"What?"

"What will that belt do for you?"

"Oh a hell of a lot of stuff. It a special belt that was the pinnacle of earth technology when I left. It had the ability to make a space capable of storing items in. The belt stored guns and ammo and through a mental link system was able to recognize only users who were programmed into the belt. The backup I've got was not originally mine but belonged to a dead comrade of mine, and over the years I re-programmed it to accept me and access my stuff as well as my old friends."

"Oh." Reddy said as he brought his mind around the answer. Wow… Well anyway while you're gone what do we do?"

"Paint over the Zoids. I want mine to be earth brown and earth red. Also you guys need civilian clothes. So do those things and when I get back we'll go."

"Right"

"Good luck."

"You too."

-End-

Come on Read and review somebody, I need feedback to improve, and feedback to tell me I'm on the right track!


	10. Chapter 10

-Rebirth of the Guardians – the long awaited sequel to chapter – 9

Chapter 10 – the base gone

Well I need someone to review and say what they like and don't like in order for me to change that. So someone say something already!

-Begin-

Tom ran constantly in order to make almost the entire distance to the base in one day. His super enhancements from sitting in the stasis pod for eons allowed him to do this with relative ease. Still however, he was human and thus could not make it the entire way in the first day; however he found himself a little island in a small stream where he most likely would not get trampled by the advancing army in his sleep, set up a fire to cook some of his food he had brought.

Later on in the night a small patrol of Zenebas scouts, with reports of smoke and by assumption fire, showed up on the stream bank. They saw the fire was a controlled one, but they also saw that a person was present. The person warranted its own investigation.

"Sir." One of the eight men assigned to the mission said to the leader. "How should we approach him?"

The leader, a somewhat short but muscular looking man with simple brown hair named Denis looked at the man for a while longer. "He seems unarmed. But still that doesn't make him not dangerous." He chewed his lip. Screw this up, HQ may never hear about it anyway. But screw this up and have his men die was guilt he wanted to avoid. "The way I look at it we've got three options. The first is to be friendly and approach him with fair warning. This is the most likely one to succeed but if it fails it could kill each last one of us. The second is to take him by surprise, if he's armed with a knife it's most likely we all will live but a few will get injured. If he has a gun I think a couple of us may die. If he's un-armed we still may loose something if we don't aim to kill. Which we aren't planning to do correct?" Denis looked at his small squad. None were real killers; they would kill in self defense or under orders but none liked it. "Good. I still don't like that option. Our third has us start out with using Celia (Celia being a beautiful blonde and the groups only female) to seduce the man. From there we follow either the friendly plan or the aggressive one to deal with him."

"Are we sure it's a man or a lesbian woman." Celia said without flinching.

"No."

"Then screw plan c."

"Fair enough, anyone else agree?" He looked as much as he and the other guys would like to see Celia half naked, or even in a wet shirt they really knew that the plan had one fatal flaw that could get her killed which was worse than her wrath. Which she would have none of because she was so damn flirtatious. So the group agreed. "All right then, plan A or plan B."

"I vote for plan A because any and all plan B's tend to fail." Said the first man who spoke. Celia and Denis sighed; the man had his odd moments. But the general group assent, save for the action hungry two of the bunch, was for plan A, if for different reasons.

"Ok, plan A it is then." Denis said. "Now we holster our arms and get up and shout our greetings." Doing just that Denis shouted a, "Hello there!" to the man he did not know was actually a guardian force member in civilian clothing.

On the island Tom heard paused for a moment in his eating of a fish he had caught evaluated his choices and turned around to roughly where the voice had come from. "Hi." He said loudly back. Tom squinted but the fire made it hard to see past where the light cast its glow. "I can't quite see you mysterious person could you come here?"

"Why not." Denis shouted back. Then, in a much quieter tone of voice to his squad Denis said, "Well this works, the guy asked us to come over."

Tom thumbed his gun under his cloak. Even if it was a bunch of Zenebas foot soldiers he doubted he would shoot, but if they knew he was the ghost fox then they all would die. They came into sight and Tom could quickly tell they were harmless lackeys. "Hello there, what are you people doing here. I thought the Zenebas army must have thrown its entire national populace into this invasion, is it true can they spare you people to do this?" Tom said with a light chuckle in his voice and a hand still close to his gun.

"Are you mocking us?" Denis asked somewhat angry.

"Heavens no." Tom replied, "I was just saying it's such a massive invasion force that I'm surprised they can spare anyone to do anything."

"Well the total size of the Zenebas army is well over 15 million people as of my last known check of that particular statistic. So with an invasion force of 50,000 Zoids we can spare eight people to check for forest fires."

Tom looked at his campfire. Then he looked up to see a long smoke trail. _Shit, stealthy I am not any longer _he thought. "Oh my is it that obvious."

"Guy saw it from half a mile away."

"Well I planned to put it out in about an hour, right before I went to sleep."

"Alright, then we'll leave you soon enough. But I must ask."

Tom braced for that very likely question that he knew was coming.

"What are you doing out here during a massive war operation like this."

Yep that was it. That damn question that always put the hero at risk of being discovered. Thank god Tom's little island was by no means anywhere near a civilization with detailed records about every little thing. "Well local rumor has it that the base of the Ghost fox was nearby."

"It does now does it?"

"Hey you should know better than me. News reports about Zenebas intelligence say that you guys had discerned his location by whatever technology you got yourselves."

"That is true, and from what I know this is fairly close."

"Oh well then good."

"Where do you come from?"

"Three days east." Tom answered like a natural. Even though he came from one day north west. "The town of Obona. It's a moderate village. And it's hell to get here in any time at all." Tom knew this from various maps he had. There was a swamp on the way over from that town, and the same one from the town he had come from. His pants had enough mud to attest to that story. Tom's note of the leader's eyes darting to his pants confirmed this.

"Well now you are adventurous aren't you?" Denis said calmly. He was from that town as well and he didn't know this man, true it was a decent sized town but he knew enough people to test his knowledge.

"My parents say I get it from my grandfather, the old col. 'stonewall' Jackson." Tom laughed, he had been to that town ages ago when he was still ageless. He knew it inside out, and had even had an adopted grandfather, it was this 'stonewall'

"Ah so you knew stonewall too?" Denis asked, if this guy knew the same stonewall then he really was from Obona.

"You knew him?" Tom asked genuinely surprised, now he wouldn't be able to make up as much.

"Yea, not so much personally, but more like I knew of him."

"Ah." Never mind, he could make up more than he thought. "Yea, he died while I was still young but I know him a bit."

"Oh, how old are you?"

Tom looked at Denis square in the eye, "18."

"Oh I see, you don't have a lot of memories of you're grandfather do you?"

"No not really." Tom sighed and lied. He had plenty, but still apart from the ages everything was the truth. Tom had known the old man for three years before he died. Which was the same number of years that age gave him to know 'stonewall' Jackson.

"Ah, I am sorry for you're loss."

"Thanks." Tom mused as he looked at the sky with a hint of sadness in his eyes.

"Well I guess we'll be leaving now. Sorry to trouble you." Denis said with a small bow. The rest of the guys left too, Celia being last and she un-buttoned a few buttons on her shirt before going.

Tom sighed. That guy had really pulled out an old series of things that would make him break into tears. Everyone who he had outlived over his life. That was the one thing above even his accidental genocide of the zoidian people, that could make this 10,000 year old general of war and elite soldier still cry after all these years. And that night he lay silently cursing the memories he had and listing everyone he knew he had outlived. Starting with his extensive earth family and ending with a few people who may be alive somehow and Tom was just un-able to accept being dead.

The next day Tom woke up bright and early with no physical or mental hint of how he had felt the previous night. He simply was ready to get to that base quickly and get this all done.

Quickly packing up and picking a traveling food out of his rations pack he ran off faster than any normal human would be able to. Unfortunately this human outpacing patrolling Zoids would be something that would draw great attention.

When Tom arrived at the base about three hours after dawn he saw that the base was ripped to shreds. There were craters and explosion marks everywhere. Damaged Zoids strewed the ground for a large area around the base, some friendly more of others not so. "NO YOU IDIOTS!!!" He shouted in rage. _I doubted that they would outright listen to me, but I thought they would listen to the voice of reason once the enemy arrived._ He gripped his hand tight in a fist. And then cried, adding countless names to the list. All those soldiers who had died because he had been unable to stop the war.

After standing still for a couple of minutes he walked calmly in to the place where the extra belt would be. On his way to the base's basement he saw several dead bodies and plenty of dried blood. While avoiding the dead Tom walked forward without paying them more than the occasional glance.

Finally he arrived in the basement and found his safe, somehow un-opened, and still on one piece. Opening it up he took out the belt and began the lengthy process of trying to fine tune it to his equipment instead of that of it's previous human owner, or if possible, in addition to that.

Finally right before he was done he heard an explosion. "Enemies? Shit and I'm not done either." Tom swore more as he quickly and quietly ran up to the first floor to see a small force bombarding the base with a girl tied up at their front. She looked familiar. Tom squinted at her; upon closer observation he realized it was Jaina. "Jaina?" He breathed. "She was alive."

Jaina was a mess. Her uniform was ripped all over and she and her uniform were covered in blood. Her hair went every which way. And she was dirty all over. Her eyes carried the look of someone not totally in their head.

Jaina had never deployed and by some fluke had survived. However she was reduced to a babbling psycho. When Zenebas had arrived at the base she came charging out with a rock and tried to attack them. But they had caught her in an instant and tied her up. They were going to kill her but at the behest of their commander not to kill the insane and rather bring her back for potential information. But the soldiers had received positive orders to burn down the base at their discretion and so they did. Tom had arrived just in time for them to throw the incendiary weapons. And the other shots had been more fuel for the fire, oil and gasoline.

When the base began to burn Jaina began to struggle and managed to break her bonds and run inside of the building. When she escaped the commander said he had wanted her alive but not that much and they let her go.

Tom could survive the smoke of a fire for much longer than the average person. He just had to avoid the actual flames. But when he saw Jaina running towards him he had to wonder what she was thinking. Tom saw her and got himself in a position to catch her and cover her mouth and nose to keep her alive. Then he did just that. Jaina struggled for a bit, as Tom expected. But when she saw who had her with a kind smile on his face for once her reaction was one she did not expect. She exploded. With a scream that could easily equal that of any horror movie she reached up to Tom's throat and tried to strangle him.

Tom almost felt offended by her horrible attempt to kill him at first. Then he was offended by her cliché scream. And lastly after a full minute he was offended by the fact that she had her hands around his throat and was actually trying to kill him. **Brilliant Sherlock. **Kokuhso chimed in his head. Tom mentally snarled at him and snarled at Jaina at the same time. Both were pissing him off.

With an angry smack he knocked her away from him towards a particularly hot looking fire. She fell far short. Tom growled she was never going to provide a side of her for him to like was she? Well she was going to get a very angry side of him. She leapt at Tom who easily deflected her towards fire again. Somehow she landed short even though Tom was really trying to burn her. "Why are you attacking me you dumb bitch." Tom spat out.

"You are the bad one." She said with a whine. "She told me that you would destroy it all. You had abandoned us, I think she was right."

"Who's she?" Tom asked curious about the she more than the circumstances.

"She is the lead advisor for the Zenebas emperor. She came to this base because it was the ghost fox's base. We held out for two days against the assault, us and about 50 other Zoids. They didn't know our numbers until after we were beat she said. Since they knew it was the ghost fox base they thought you were here. I was the sole survivor. I crashed in a swamp and then ran back here." Her appearance waist down suggested that. Her clothes were very muddy and there was some swamp goo visible on her. "I fought for a day. Eventually I was the last one left. Everyone died around me. There was lot's of blood." Again she had blood all over her. Tom was annoyed by all the dumb details, but mentally he paid his respects for the dead. "When the lady came she said her name was Chezneckia." Tom noted that, it was by no means a common name. "She whispered to me, and then put white flames around my head. Then I saw the truth." A white glow surrounded Jaina. Tom stepped back and produced a large gatling gun with a white flash. "You are evil. You plan to rule the world with your superior earth technology. You are the one I must kill!" Jaina rose up into the air.

Tom grumbled then talked to kokuhso, **a friend of yours did this. Who?**

**Shit it was Yosei.**

**Who?**

**My worst foe alive, and even worse dead.**

**Ah, explains the using a former ally to kill me thing.**

**Well you won't need me to kill this bitch, that gun should do.**

**WHAT!**

**You need to show me your natural skills anyway.**

In his own portion of his mind Tom grumbled as Jaina began her ephemeral attack. A she floated she began with white dragons seeming to be made of plasma forming on her arms. Tom began with a bombard of laser fire. With his gun sounding more like a jackhammer than anything else hundreds of lasers impacted against her plasma looking ephemeral shield.

Outside gunshots could be heard, as well as Jaina's earlier scream too. But as the gunshots bounced off the shield and out of the building into the poor saps outside the thought that someone may have been alive in the house when they set it on fire changed into a mad murder was in the house. So they tried to make him dust. And the ones to get the results of the barrage from Zoids and armed soldiers were Tom and Jaina.

Tom started coughing. Even with 10,000 years of letting his body become better and more able to minimize the oxygen necessary, running around with a heavy laser gun with while trying to counter it's pretty impressive recoil dodging laser fire and being in a burning building Tom's lungs were really running low on oxygen. **Oxygen shield, and deflect the zoid shots now kokuhso! **Tom thought angrily as he put away his big laser and switched to a one handed big caliber Tommy gun version and blasted it.

**You're doing fine.**

**FINE, do you call doing jack shit to your enemy while you're dying from smoke fucking fine!!!**

**Point taken. I'll deflect the zoid bullets, and let you breathe. But you still have to kill the bitch.**

**Deal.** Tom was thought exasperated. **One question. **He thought after an explosive he had in his belt space exploded in Jaina's face and Jaina was ok. **How the hell do we deal with her invincible seeming shield?**

**Um I think we have to let up enough to let her attack us.**

**WHAT!?!**

**Well it's just that the spell that Yosei used on her simulates a Kami possession. Or for basic magic abilities to be placed in a regular person, however you wish to see it. However while the spell give the user some skill in magic from the caster and spell both there are areas, much like when possessed by a lesser Kami, that are only learnable by experience. One is the transition from offense to defense. She can make a nearly impregnable defense to you, but her offense will at best have a minute shield for defense. One that you could penetrate with almost any gun.**

**So I have to let her beat me up correct?**

**Try to beat you up.**

**Ah. **Tom produced a rocket launcher with a very, very dangerous looking rocket on it. **Will this tear her flesh to bits?**

**I would assume so.**

**Good I want her dead after this. I never liked her anyway.**

**Fine then do it.**

And with that prompt from kokuhso Tom did just do it. He made his Tommy gun disappear in a flash of white. But kept running circles around Jaina. For a moment Jaina's shield remained up. Then it went down. Tom didn't attack though. The transition to full offense hadn't been made. But Tom did stop moving. "Bring it." He said motioning his left hand in the infamous hand motion. His right hand had the rocket launcher facing away from her. After what seemed like a long time with zoid shells going through the room every so often Jaina began to grin. Tom pouted, her being happy in this situation was bad for him. Then he felt the slightest touch on his gun in an instant Tom was three feet further around his circle to jaina's left and had left the rocket launcher behind in the mouth of the dragon. **Was that one of those more advanced maneuvers that come only with experience? **Tom asked with a mix of sarcasm and rage in his mind.

**A little experience by the spell caster. **Kokuhso replied calmly. **This doesn't change our strategy much; you just have to make less predictable movements.**

**I'll try. **Tom mentally grumbled again. This was getting annoying. He really wanted to kill her now. Tom didn't take out any weapons; he simply made the rocket launcher return in a white flash. Then he moved around the whole room at a rate un-believable. He was still visible but whenever Jaina tried to attack he wasn't there. Several times twin long white dragons struck out from her arms but they never hit Tom. Then he was above her a sword in his hand. "DIE BITCH!" He shouted, it was just enough warning, half a shield went up, and then was promptly sliced, but the shield deflected the sword attack so that it just scratched her. After Tom hit the ground he kicked Jaina with his legs high up in the air several times. Then she fell down.

After a moment Tom noted the zoid barrage had stopped. **When did it stop? **Tom asked the much more aware kokuhso.

**When I began to deflect every shot heading towards you back towards where it came from.**

Tom put his face in his hand and sighed for a moment then he looked at Jaina. The cut he had made was not very deep, but ran long. All the way from the middle of her right shoulder blade to her foot. It also cut the right side of her clothes clean off from about four inches away from her shoulder in a straight line. Tom noted this with some satisfaction, and some level of personal elation, but he simply put first things first, she had to die. Producing a normal gun he pointed it at her, "Prepare to die." He shot her twice. Once in the leg, once somewhere non-descript in the chest. After a moment of twitching Tom kicked her into the fire. "Burn." After a moment of awkward reflection Tom noted, "The first time I actually got her into the fire." He said this without hate regret or any emotions period. _Am I that heartless a human being? Willing and able to burn my comrade that easily. _Tom thought for some time, and then he got a conclusion. _I am. I was a war lord and I always will be to some extent. _Tom looked back at the girl behind him. _Just more some times than others._

And then Tom began the lone sad trek home.

-End-

Yea pretty violent there… Maybe I should give this an M rating. Hopefully this is the most violent though. But knowing me and my violent tendencies (looks at other fanfics, sees people dying by the thousands, if not millions and many in rather violent ways) probably not.


	11. Chapter 11

-Rebirth of the Guardians – the long awaited sequel to chapter – 10

Chapter 11 – the scroll and the Zoidians

Oh yes and Kokuhso's back so as a reminder, **Bold Kokuhso's mental talks **

-Begin-

When Tom returned to the town, two days later than he had planned, he was surprised to still see it standing. "Wow, Zenebas didn't flatten this place when they saw a bunch of Zoids run into the town." Tom said aloud as he entered the mechanic shop base of operations.

"Well I've got a funny story about that." Reddy said.

"So how was it?" Relena asked hopping down from the top of a repainted command wolf. Her civilian clothes of choice, a tank top with a deep cut neckline, and a miniskirt revealed more in that situation than Tom had assumed Relena would ever reveal of her body.

Tom's moment of mixed glee, surprise, and general awkwardness, was interrupted when the question that Relena had asked. Lying he said, "They were all gone."

"You mean they died!?!" Relena said with a frantic sounding shout.

"No I mean they physically had been removed, as living persons or otherwise." Lie he would, but get her hopes up that much he would not. There were only two of the base members whom Tom had not seen in his short two minute tour of the actual base halls, and five minutes in the basement. And one of them was actually a chronic asthmatic. So he doubted he could have run and lived. The other was her boyfriend. Somehow he doubted that John and Anna had survived. "But anyways my guess it that the front has gone miles deeper into our territory so we can't escape with them. Hell they're probably long gone and fighting back at mount isolena or somewhere."

"So you mean we're stuck here all alone." Relena said with a tint of regret not at all hidden in her voice. Tom chuckled. "Normally I'd get pissed at that laugh, but that's only the military me." Tom raised an inquisitive and somewhat dis-believing eyebrow. He really had honestly never expected this.

"Really, I thought you were a bitch at home, and at the neighbors house, and at the boyfriends, in-laws, and boss's house."

Relena was the one to laugh. "I was but that was usually because I was drunk or high or something."

"You a druggie?" Tom said looking at Relena very odd. "I think hell just froze over." Tom looked out the door, "Is that snow?" He said genuinely surprised beyond a level that should be expected. Especially because of his long time alive and the fact that he had managed to take in things that would make most heads threaten to explode.

"Well I wasn't a druggie per-say. Just sometimes marijuana and other such things would enter my system from my friends." Tom kept on staring at her oddly, she ignored him with a practiced ease. "I was a constant drunk by my own means. I vaguely remember being attacked and left for dead a long time ago and I think the guys who attacked me killed my family. Let's just say I was an alcoholic to drown out the sorrow."

Tom waited to make sure her ever brief story was really done, then he asked reddy, "Is this true, her a druggie and alcoholic?"

"Hey I didn't believe it when she said it the first time but Perrone said that they lived in the same town for a time and she frequented a bar he worked at during that time. Every day, when she wasn't working perhaps for eight hours, she may puke and get piss drunk every day she wasn't working but Perrone said she never once passed out in the bar. Something no other customer during his time there could claim." Reddy said with an awkward laugh.

"Ok so should she be proud sad or half dead from all the alcohol."

Relena laughed, she stumbled slightly, "Bit tipsy there." She mumbled. "I'm rather proud big boy."

Tom was _REALLY _perplexed. "Is she taking shots from a hip flask when you're talking or when she breathes? And if it is the latter does she do it so fast we can't perceive her doing it?"

"I'd say hip flask or acting." Reddy grinned a big grin.

Tom glared at reddy for an instant then glared at Relena and kept it. "I'm tempted to hit reddy but more so you." He said before he walked away preventing that temptation from being exercised.

Ignoring that very, _very _odd situation Tom walked to around to see that everyone was prepared for the trip. Everyone all was. The group excuse for them not to get blow to little itty bitty pieces of nothing was that reddy had found them after his last battle in the town. Now he was taking them out of harms way and would return to the front ASAP. Of course ASAP would be some time from now and he probably would never actually return. Honestly the odds were in favor of him fighting Zenebas over him supporting them, and him fighting Zenebas was unlikely once they got to GF territory. Him fighting in the war period was unlikely once they got out of the battlefront.

But what was most important for Tom was him getting the special seal release thing so he could hopefully not have to deal with an angry planet bent on mauling him. So far there were no signs, but things seemed odd. Odd in a way that really couldn't be described. Perhaps Tom was just paranoid, he had been alive for many a millennia, had a voice in his head and had killed thousands if not millions of people, perhaps insanity and paranoia were the norms for people in his circumstances. Or perhaps he needed a way to explain why he, the best fighter of the group capable of doing things that could rip apart dozens of Zoids without unleashing the wrath of hellfire and only using one of his hundreds of gadgets in his infinite space belt, was leaving a group of people in a way that would not make it seem like he was getting ready to make himself weak enough to be killed and thus cause a massive loss for the guardian force intentionally. After thinking about it seriously he decided it was paranoia, with the leaving the group defenseless against as much as much as perhaps an Ultrasaurus. Yeah he really was just about a nervous wreck. Oh if only he had one of the machines on the discovery, but he was still trying to find someone who would make his fleet, he had the money to make one ship from Zoid battles but he still needed a manufacturer. "Damn it sucks knowing how to make technology eons ahead of the manufacturing technology. I need a mad scientist." Tom sighed, that was exactly what he needed.

The next morning the group left. Somehow Relena had been able to get into the command wolf, most likely drunk, and get on Tom's lap. It had been certain that something like that would happen with someone but since Relena had managed to fight Tom into submitting and with John's testament to how extremely flirtatious she was with him there was plenty of potential romance, or prostitution, that could happen.

Finally after an hour of walking along they came upon the mile wide advancing column. Then everyone silenced themselves, it was time for reddy's influence to shine through. If they needed to that was. They all began the crossing at a moderate pace, save for Fred who was long past the valley. As they went along and the number of Zenebas Zoids seemed to increase they sped up. Finally after another hour they made it across. Breathing a sigh of relief they prepared to move on when some moderately highly ranked Zenebas soldier appeared on Tom's pilot screen and asked. "Hey what are you doing?"

Tom was caught off guard by this but was able to act his way out. Putting on the face of a somewhat nervous person and adding a hint of fear to his voice he spoke, "Well we were in our town not believing that this mass of Zoids Zenebas was talking about could exist. Damn were we ever wrong. Well we hid in the one building big enough to hold us all until this nice you Zenebas soldier, he said his name is reddy, came along and offered to help us out. So we got ready and now he's taking us to a place he said we'll be safe in."

The soldier pondered the story, rightly so since every bit of it was false, and just as he seemed to accept the story a realization hit his face. "Hey you look familiar!" He shouted as he trained his gun on the command wolf Tom was in.

_SHIT! _Tom thought, _If one guy shoots us more are bound to follow. Strong I may be but, that strong I am not._

"Well now." Relena said sounding completely smashed. "I see you've met my boyfriend before."

Reddy quickly took over before the commander asked anyone else about their story. "You see sir they were in the town where I ended up after the ghost fox attacked I was originally stationed in. I saw that they were terrified and had a black reddler, a bonus. So I offered to take them to at least temporary safety so they won't get caught up in the chaos of war and killed."

The soldier looked at reddy closely for all of a second and then decided he was the real thing. "So you're reddy eh? You're younger than I thought."

"Yea I get that a lot." Reddy said with total honesty, he really did get that a lot.

"So where you taking them?"

"The city of sentarius ruins."

"There?"

"Yeah, with the Zenebas policy of avoiding zoidian ruins I thought it would be the best place to stick them for a while, since I really can't go north or to a safe town."

"Ok, when you're done you better try and return to the front."

"I'll try my best." Reddy said, his best being not doing anything, his worst would be him ending up fighting Zenebas. With a nod and half salute the soldier cut off his comm. Link with reddy, and with a nod a faint growl at Relena, who played the part of flattered, he cut of that comm. Link.

Tom simply resorted to brute force in a barely violent manner as to keep her from making any more insane potential advances. He took Relena and physically tossed her over the seat into johns lap. "HEY!" She shouted at Tom. Tom's palm met her face and she crushed john. After two repeat attempts she gave up and looked at john. "Hey big boy." She said.

"Relena shut the hell up." Tom said his face and voice like stone. _Things like this run too big a risk for me to get attached more than I am now. I can't risk getting distracted in any of my two main missions. Kill Lisa and getting that scroll._

After some more time of traveling across the land to the site and no more awkward attempts at romance the gang arrived. The city was no big thing above ground, at least not anymore. Archaeologists said that there must have been a decent sized city by modern and zoidian standards above ground. Below ground was truly a massive labyrinth only matched by eveopolis. Above the ground were eight massive rings. Some had full buildings, if albeit ones that were rather ratty but still whole. Other had simple ruins, and one in the center was blank. However between the rings and a ways beyond there was a massive underground city that stretched for what seemed to be forever.

It was there that the small gang took refuge. And it was there, somewhere, where the scroll that would return the power to the planet itself was hidden, somewhere.

"Somewhere!" Tom shouted externally as well as internally. "Anywhere is somewhere!"

**So sue me, my memory of the place is far from perfect.**

"Look you at least could direct me to the right 'ring' and I could search from there."

**Look I hid it in an ancient zoidian temple in the only ring that existed at the time. Seven more have appeared since I was here last and the temple appears to be gone. What the hell am I supposed to do when no-one has a map of this place and my two key physical landmarks are rendered useless?**

Tom sighed, here he was a living being with technology perhaps ten times superior to anything on the planet and a powerful magical spirit and they couldn't find a damn scroll. Well Tom was not an archaeologist but he had the discerning eye to figure out where a grand temple may have been. Also he was certain he had _some _way to get from sphere to sphere. Taking a moment to use his special belt and produce a device for flight (read lack of description as author being lazy) Tom ran towards the nearest open area he could think of.

Meanwhile in another underground area the small gang were in hiding from a massive army that had several ultrasauruses and perhaps a million soldiers that were looking for the heads of guardian force members. Eight on anything greater than 10 would mean more than ten would come in time. And now with their best chance for survival gone everyone had to have a weapon with them at all time.

"Damn why did Tom have to leave." Relena muttered as she looked at the fire. "I mean sure he said he had something important he needed to find here. But I think he was just leaving us to die."

"Is that what you think?" John asked Relena. "Well I think that if he left us alone for good it would be to save us."

"Why's that?" Relena said with a sneer.

"Because he will draw plenty of attention. He's assumed multiple names over the years and you only need his original name to draw ten thousand people to his very beck and call. Or use his most recent name to call down half a million Zenebas soldiers on his name. And of course you could use both and do some crazy shit I can't even try to make up." John leaned back from poking the fire with a stick. "Yeah. Only problem is he isn't the type to leave us alone. He won't leave his comrades alone for long unless something truly important pulls him away. You know that as well as I do now."

Relena looked into the fire then at the zoid cockpit. Several hours with the very real prospect that the man piloting the zoid they had been in wouldn't say a word had seemed beyond boring, it seemed potentially deadly with the boredom it would bring. So they had asked Tom about his earth past. God there was a lot for him to tell. First off his age was misleading; he really had been alive for close to 40 years where he had aged. It was just earth technology had become so advanced aging happened much slower there than here. At least that was eons ago. Then came the discussion of him as a soldier, he had been a very loyal commander, capable and dedicated. He never had left his soldiers behind for long if the situation was truly bleak. And if he had to go into a building by himself to do it then he would, and he always succeeded. His strategy may not have been the best in the world, but really strategy had not been his forte, rather it was his ability that made him shine. He mentioned the ship he had come to this portion of the Milky Way on, the discovery, and how on board it was military technology unlike Zi had ever seen. He also mentioned that he was working on a way to retrieve it from the moon, of course first he had to get to the moon but in his eyes that was a minor detail. Tom said himself all he needed was 'a scientist mad enough to make a space battleship'. He then mentioned all the technology existed on this planet now, and his winnings would provide the funds for at least one ship, maybe even two. Also he had patent funds, earnings from technologies on loan to the whole planet practically and god knows where other forms of income for him came from. He said he might be able to create a whole fleet given time. That was what he was like, he seemed to be trying to distance himself from everyone but the way he had begun to talk about how he could help people with what he knew, stop all the 'evil villains' of the world. Having his own space fleet, all those things began to make him sound like a little kid, and he genuinely smiled for a while. He was trying to become hard and callous but he was failing miserably.

"You're right John." Relena said with a faint smile, "He's always been too nice, he would only abandon us after they kill his spirits, spirits, spirit." Yet to herself she thought _He always will be this nice he always has, I know him too well to see him any other way._

Meanwhile Tom had finally found the site where the temple was most likely to have been located. "Ok so now what, we've found the place where the temple is, after searching every other damn sphere, so what do we do?"

**Well see the big building ruin in the rough center of the sphere?**

"Yes."

**That was the temple long, long ago. I hid the scroll in the actual temple building and since it's still standing I would assume it's still in there.**

"But you also assumed that the temple was in the seven other craters that exist."

**That was different, those weren't there then, this was. I can assure you that if this is the right building, which was already done by process of elimination, that I can get us to the scroll with ease.**

Tom looked at the building; it certainly fit the whole, 'see our god has moved us to build this great structure honoring it. Worship it too because our building is better than yours' bill. Really based on what Tom did know of zoidian architecture it seemed to be a likely enough locale for a temple to the great zoid mother, so why not check. "Tell me which way to go and I will go there." Tom said.

**Good. **Kokuhso levelly responded.

Meanwhile, due to the sound of patrolling Zoids and everyone's radar picking up potential hostiles the entire group had gone deeper into the underground city. "I had no idea zoidian culture was so advanced." John muttered to himself and Relena since they did not dare to communicate by radio. "I mean there was the deathsaurer combined with the meteor rain when Tom's ships impacted the moon some short time later. And yet they leave at least two massive cities nearly intact for us to see four thousand years later. And the fact that while impossibly rare today there still are zoidian capsules found some with people still alive, in fact almost half found have living occupants."

"Yes but with Tom's opinion on the globally 3 how amazing do you think the first earth technology was?" Relena asked from the back seat. "He said that odds are violence was involved with their early years on the planet. So do you think the Zoidians were at an advantage, or a disadvantage? Records show that technology, while at a moderate state, it was minimal until the humans arrived. And besides the deathsaurer was largely a human contrived design, with a zoidian blessing for the basic body and creation. If that doesn't give _some _hint to the nature of the first humans on Zi I don't know what will."

"You've got me there. But we do know about the better technology that Tom has or knows of at least. Hell this command wolf has stuff that I doubt any of Zi besides him and the other girls from his ship know about." John had been looking through the various things on the command wolf's command screen. "While the major parts are all standard smaller things that no-one would pick up on with a standard test seem to be far more advanced than any zoid in the world."

"The who what?"

"Basically Tom made parts that wouldn't be checked out in special detail, unless something was wrong, super advanced. I guess he left a little more than half at average technology levels so he could avoid unwanted attention as a genius or something of the sort."

"So he has the potential to super power this zoid but he hasn't to keep a relatively low profile."

"Yeah a relatively low one, with over some thousands of wins in the battle arena and hundreds of kills on the battle field. He's really doing a good job of keeping himself hidden in plain sight." John kept on looking at various files Tom had on his computer. "I guess we should leave another sign eh?"

"I suppose." The canopy opened, Relena produced a knife and started scratching an arrow on the wall. After a few minutes she pulled out her weapon, an assault rifle, and blasted out a larger arrow. "Done now we can hope he finds us before someone who wants us dead does."

On the unfortunate cue, with the cockpit still open, a shot rang out. Relena fell down as the command wolf made a minute twitch to dodge the attack, when she hit the ground blood was coming out of the place where her chest had been connected to her arm. And where her left arm once met her shoulder.

"RELENA!" John shouted as he turned to fire shots down the hall that made an impact that went boom. "Are you ok!?!"

"What do you think you retard?" Relena said without moving. "I don't have a left arm anymore. Give me my gun." She said without moving.

John hopped out of the cockpit as the rest of the gang blasted away at the foes that were far away. He gave her the gun. "Now give me as many explosives that you can and give me a detonator." After taking 12 minutes to do that Relena had one more request. "Turn me so I can make an arrow that way." She pointed towards where the enemy was. When john was done, and had supported her up with explosives Relena said, "Now go far that way, I'll keep them busy here." John paused for a moment nodded and got into his command wolf.

"Guys we're out of here!" John shouted as he let off two more quick shots into the enemy ranks.

"But what about Relena?" Reddy asked, "We all saw her get shot."

"Well I don't want to kill your emotions but it was an anti zoid gun sniper round. I'll leave the rest up to your imagination."

"Oh." Reddy murmured. "You heard the man let's go!" After firing off one last machine gun burst reddy took off with everyone else quickly following.

Relena waited until a minute after they were all gone. "That was a painful act to put up. But this should be fairly easy." She threw her gun aside and stood up detonator in hand. The arrow was very well marked in the wall.

Tom had just gotten his hand on the scroll when he heard a large explosion. "The hell was that." Tom said taking out the scroll and running out of the room. Producing a silver looking hand held weapon Tom asked kokuhso out loud, "Care if a little zoidian ruin is made more ruinous."

**Hell no, they did kill plenty of the Kami before I signed the treaty remember?**

"Good point." With a point Tom pointed at a point about eight feet ahead of his current position fired the gun. A small silvery white orb shot out and impacted with a fair sized explosion against the ceiling.

**Damn, you had that all along?**

"Yes, and now you'll see much more of my arsenal since all you can do is heal."

**You've piqued my interest; I can guarantee you I will be 100 focused on healing just to see 20 of the crap in that belt.**

"I doubt I'll let you down." Tom said as he jumped off the walls to the top of the building. "I am known for my fighting ability not my tactical genius." Tom now had two of his silver pistols in each hand. He ran four feet jumped and wings came out of his back. They were red glider wings, and an odd square pack on his back let out rocket blasts. "And here's where _I_ get to show off."

Diving down some several hundred feet in order to make it to the cave opening Tom darted right to where he knew the Zoids were at a speed virtually unmatched by any machine not ten times the size of the one he had on his back. Darting through complicated pathways that were sometimes too narrow to fit his wings the long way Tom didn't slow down a hair for anything. If a building came in his way it was blasted several times no matter how much was in his way, be it two millimeters thick or ten feet thick. Tom came up on a large hole. "What is it?" Tom asked kokuhso as he stopped above it.

**The path to the underground should be faster to get to your friends, just don't expect an exit hole where they may be.**

"Anything down there that still may be moving?"

**Not as far as I can figure.**

Tom didn't reply he simply dove and used his forward boosters to go faster still, leveling out he made a slight turn into the vast cavernous area underneath the entire city. "Damn this is perfect!" He muttered as he dashed off to right where he was being told to go by his gut, his tracking device, and his inner sense of direction.

After another ten minutes of gliding around Tom came to the spot where he could hear explosions overhead. Common sense still present Tom pushed a button on his belt, a glow that vaguely held the coloring of a bubble surrounded him in a bubble shape. **What's this?**

"A common product. It's called 'my personal bubble'. It should be able to deflect, oh…" Tom then pointed both of his guns up and pulled their triggers as fast as he could. After three minutes of blasting, and about a full minute of shooting with nothing above him until you reached the ground some eighty feet up, Tom continued his sentence, "About that much rubble."

**Ah.** Kokuhso said somewhat sarcastically. Tom didn't care in the least.

Floating up Tom turned one way and blasted everything in that direction. It was a mass of Zenebas Zoids that had pulled back from the orbs of light. They couldn't pull back from this barrage. After a full five minutes of firing without really trying the guns stopped shooting of energy when Tom pulled the trigger. "Shit out of energy." Tom mumbled. He spun the guns around his fingers and did a traditional Wild West holstering of them. With a flash they disappeared at either side of his waist. With another flash Tom had a large gatling gun in his hands; Tom let himself settle on the ground some distance from the very big hole he had made. "SAY HELLO TO MY LITTE FRIEND!!!" Tom shouted ignoring the oxymoron. After another five minutes the gun disappeared in a flash. It still could fire but Tom hadn't let any smoke clear since he had started shooting and besides those Zoids were gone one way or another. Tom looked at the wall. He had seen the arrow and the arm some time ago. When one shot with reckless abandon for almost six minutes without a care of aiming as long as their shots were in one direction they tended to notice things. Tom sighed he knew who's arm it was. True no technology or magical reading was telling him that but Tom knew. "Relena, why did you die?" He said as he collapsed to his knees crying for someone who he had really cared about. He smacked the ground producing only a slight effect, but more than he could do normally. Tom noted this only slightly and thought, _Thanks._

**It may be all the power I can produce for the entire stay here but I felt this situation deserved it. **Kokuhso said to Tom. He had used as much power as he could summon which was almost none, and had done his best to help Tom as he could.

Tom looked to the smoke; it was clearing to reveal either Tom needed to aim more if he was going to go into a barrage of fire like that ever again. Or it showed that someone had a bigger interest in this place than Tom had planned on. Tom stood up. He began shaking, almost falling over, with a flash the small glider like wings were replaced with large pure energy wings of white. In Tom's right hand a sword appeared. With a silent leap Tom began slicing off limbs of both Zoids and humans.

Hell had been unleashed on earth if but for a moment.

-End-

Well now we get to see more senseless violence, as well as the last of the main good guys dieing for this particular fic. Also we get more into the kokuhso/Tom relation. And the Tom/everyone relation. And the everyone/everyone relation. All in all I like this chapter.


	12. Chapter 12

Rebirth of the Guardians – the long awaited sequel to chapter – 11

Chapter 12 – one man can change the course of history

-Begin-

Tom glanced over the 82 Zoids that he had been forced to rip to shreds. Tom sighed, now he was alone nowhere near full power and possibly with half of the Zenebas invasion force after his head. Things were not good. 

First off he was alone; true he was nearly immortal between his regeneration and offensive power but near immortals was not immortal by any means. Second off he had just set up a massive beacon for anyone to find with ease. Well technically he had set up beacons really when had produced the rocket launchers and begun aiming for missile pods but there were obvious signs of conflict and conflict with a skilled opponent or group of opponents. That would draw attention to him, perhaps not directly him yet but it would drift his way and he would attract it further. And for that matter more of it. This would, or rather could, bring something that he couldn't face. What that could be was beyond him. But if it came there was very little the whole of the planet could do to defeat it. Well maybe not that much but whatever it was that could beat him would be a tough sonofabitch. 

If it worked for Zenebas everyone was screwed. If it worked for the guardian force Tom had a better opinion, but everyone had the legitimate possibility of being screwed. If it worked for those other guys that no-one really cared about to the east, well in that case they had the best chance of all cause as of now the sucked. But in the end odds are everyone would be screwed. Unless Tom could get stronger, he was the world's strongest person. Not in terms of brute force necessarily, though he probably was.

Either that or he was the world's most arrogant person. Actually he could be both, even acknowledging that fact made him feel more arrogant. But he still could be stronger no matter what. And additional strength would make him more arrogant so he definitely could take the title of most arrogant.

**Are you drunk? **Kokuhso asked. **Since when the hell were you arrogant? You may not be the most humble person I know now or ever by any means but most arrogant? I think the Zenebas overlord or whatever he calls himself has you beat.**

"Really now?"

**As far as I can guess yes.**

"Then I better beat him less arrogant than me."

**That was arrogance, if you truly want the world title you're on your way. **Kokuhso said with a laugh. Tom grinned to, even though he was alone and his team was too things would be fine, he was a miracle worker like it or not.

"Come on they'll need my help."

**Who?**

"Everyone I can help."

**I see. Well make some wings and get flying.**

The red wings returned, they drew much less attention and offered much more control. "Roger that." Then with a good run and two jumps he was in the air off to find his squad.

Meanwhile the team was all looking at the door they had found. Large made of metal and apart from the shots delivered in fear that it was an enemy it seemed in amazing condition. "So where do you think the door leads?" Reddy asked as he tapped it and rapped it trying to figure out something.

"Hell if I know." Fred muttered as he leant against the wall. "All I do know is there's one way to find out and that's to go inside."

"How do we do that?" Several people asked.

"With what we have right now? I would guess blow the door up."

"Ah the thing is probably six feet thick or something and you say blow it up." Reddy muttered.

"What do you think we do, just sit here and wait for them to open up? When and if the door opens up we'll be lucky not to have an army at our back front or both!" Fred had been leaning towards reddy and shouting but when he was done he leant back. "The way I see it we could hack it if Tom or Relena were here but with just us men it would be several times easier to blow it up."

"But what about the enemy?" John muttered from the command wolf leg. "What if they hear the gunshots or something and come to investigate?"

"Well I figure with what Relena did yesterday and those other explosions we heard too the enemy won't really care about us cause their dead." Fred began to walk to the command wolf.

"Hey why you heading this way?" John said getting in Fred's way.

"Because storm sworders are ill suited for ground combat, including barrages. You have no idea how much of a bitch it was to land here. So I'm gonna use the command wolf to blow a hole in the door."

"Hell no, back off bub we haven't decided yet."

"What is there left to decide?"

"We can just leave."

"LEAVE!! All this time here and you want to leave!"

" 'All this time here'? You mean this past hour, you have no sense of time and we don't have the forces to deal with what's on the other side of the door in all probability. You're saying when the door opens for us we'll be crushed by the enemy force. If we blow it up the same will be true. Hell we would have a better chance if we waited in ambush!"

"Now listen hear young lad!"

"No you listen; you're crazy if you think you'll pilot this command wolf! You're crazy if you think we want to fight anymore until we're more certain of what's on the other side! And most importantly you're crazy if you think what's on the other side of that door is worth what risks we are taking simply by being here!" John had made himself a barrier between Fred and the command wolf.

Fred pulled out his gun, "Look I am the better soldier here and I get to decide what we're doing!"

Then a light came from above the command wolf it blinded everyone but john. "What did you say." Came a very deep and scary voice.

"Who, who the hell are you!?" Fred said ready to point the gun at the new arrival. Then the gun was shot out of his hand and impaled on a grand looking sword on the wall behind Fred.

"I may be your worst nightmare depending on if you keep that retarded super soldier attitude." The light disappeared as the body landed on top of the command wolf. Tom was revealed to be the speaker with a moment to let the blindness to wear off. "What the hell is going on here, I leave you alone for just one day and you're pointing guns at each other. Is mutiny something that simple to do over a god damn door!!" Tom was not happy. "If you want to see what's behind the door you should have waited for me." He mumbled as he took a kneeling pose raised his arms as if he was holding some sort of rocket launched like weapon and had one appear in white flash. The gun was several times larger than the standard one for the day and it had six massive barrels. After a moment of staring at the door Tom began to talk. "Looks like John was in the right. Behind the door is way, way too many bad guys for you to have handled. But with me here it's less than even."

"How tough are you?" John asked wondering if Tom was on drugs.

"I took out most of the force pursuing you guys earlier. That was about 82 Zoids."

"What!" No-one could believe it.

"Yeah being insane with a murderous rage can do that to ya."

After a moment john looked up to Tom, "You said 'ya' and acted happy? Do you know about Relena? Are you ok?"

Tom nodded, "All of it yes. I know that Relena is dead, hence the murderous rage thing." Tom sighed. "But I've realized just not living attached to anything is dumb. So how do you guys plan to go ahead with things in relation to the door and all?"

"But what about Relena!? You said you cared!" John shouted up at Tom.

"Becoming attached was a realization I made with her loss. And with every swing of my sword I cut all non-vital ties to the dead."

"You wha?"

"Don't worry I know what I'm saying. Just trust me about it. But again the door, me with a rapid fire multi shot rocket launcher. I think the choice is obvious."

"You got a plan?" Fred asked.

"I never was the best strategist, so I think overwhelming firepower will do. Get in your Zoids I can't deal with 80 Zoids with a strategy of overwhelming firepower on my own." And that was how the door was ripped from its very hinges by massive explosions.

Inside the various mix of well over 200 AI Zoids looked at the booms at the door, several marched over to it and began the opening sequence. The door then exploded. Quickly Reddy and Fred charged in ripping apart several on their own. Then Perrone in a blade liger and john in the command wolf charged into the mess. Then came the people without Zoids. (Thought I forgot about everyone else did you? Well to answer that question I did. But they're _not _dead) Devon, Oliver and Bekah were on the edge of the doorway shooting whenever an ally wouldn't get hit. Tom was in the midst of it all being the superhuman he was. With a gun in one hand shooting off silver orbs and a sword in another doing things that Zoids couldn't even do to each other. Like cutting them clean in half in a heartbeat. Whenever someone tried to shoot him he evaded with a giant leap in the air onto a zoid back. Sometimes the wings came out and he was flying either with small red wings or white energy ones.

After some time the last zoid was down. Breathing heavily Tom collapsed looking at an intricately carved wall that had a few of the great many scanning devices that had been on it when they had entered left. Tom lay on the ground his head leaning at a 90 degree angle to his neck hurting him a bit much. Straightening his neck out he got up. "Now you never had my help to the level you saw got it guys?" They all nodded. Then Tom began to observe the rest of the massive cavern they were in. It was as large as three or four whalekings lined up end to end, and just as wide as them placed side to side. At the end Tom was closest to and the door was too there was a purple glowing pool. "The hell is that." Tom muttered. As he got up and walked to it he could feel the pool pushing him away. "Crap zoidian thing correct?"

Both kokuhso and john, who had just come over to him, both answered **Yes/**"Yes."

"Joy." Tom mumbled as he forced himself away. "Well since varied circumstances keep me from getting anywhere near that thing I suggest someone else take a look at that massive pool or no-one does at all."

"Massive, Tom that's almost nothing as far as birthing pools go." Tom looked at it prepared to call John blind but then saw it was rather small. It seemed to stick out a relatively short distance as far as birthing pools were known to go. That was to say it was as wide as two Olympic sized swimming pools and as long as five but hey that was considered small. John went to the edge, "May be narrow but just as bottomless as they say. Too bad you can't get to close for I guess the spirit thing that said you would keep away from zoidian stuff forever more or less. Right?"

Tom nodded somewhat confused, "More or less." What he was confused about was that that, whatever it was had a conscious mind and, and well it had grabbed for his groin and the contract. The first one was rather odd. Actually extremely odd. It rather seemed like what Relena would have tried to have done in that situation honestly. That _REALLY _scared him shitless.

Tom looked around the base. "Wonder who set this all up?" He said as he looked at advanced ZI technology. "It's good for where they are." He tried hacking one on impulse. There was nothing to hack. "But it's all blank. Either the owners left or they have yet to show up." Not wasting time to ponder Tom got over to everyone else.

Three days later after exploring the entire underground facility a white glow appeared over the zoid birthing pool. Tom felt it when it began to show up. His energy detecting technology confirmed it, his gut attacked it. "Lisa. Shit." And then two blaster guns fired of silvery spheres of death.

-End-

Actually the base was supposed to serve another plot point, give Tom the shadow fox. But then I realized, 'this guy took out over 100 Zoids without one himself. Why the hell would he demean his ability now with something like the shadow fox?' so instead I had Tom's arch nemesis, Lisa, appear. Don't worry he will get the shadow fox at some point.

And about her last name, no I don't know where it came from. 


	13. Chapter 13

Rebirth of the Guardians – the long awaited sequel to chapter – 12

Rebirth of the Guardians – the long awaited sequel to chapter – 12

Chapter 13 – death of a human

Um the last chapter title wasn't that relevant was it? Oh well.

Oh and _**"Quotes and bold and Italics"**_ mean Tom talking mentally to kokuhso, kokuhso responds in simple **bold**. **"Quotes and bold" **means that a spirit is talking by means of some physical form.

It also has come to my attention that I forgot the Chezneckia was named Chezneckia Dorell. So I started assuming her first name was Lisa her last Chezneckia. Thus that has become her Zi name, and the name she prefers to be called by. So um that's how I retroactively fix my mistakes. (Since I'm to lazy to go find and re-type her name every time I see it, or even move this to another chapter)

-Begin-

Tom had seen the white glow and had made, or rather he had put everyone down into the ground. He himself had taken up shelter closest to Lisa armed with a gun made to try and nullify her power. Every now and then he would come out from the edge and blast her with two or three dozen shots. Then shelter would be taken once more because not even every single charge Tom had could come close to fully depleting her power.

So, as in many other times of crisis Tom started talking to the super powerful spirit stuck in his mind, mentally only this time though.

_**"HOW THE FUCK IS SHE AT FULL POWER!?"**_Tom made the… whatever it was sound something like a mental equivalent to ten or twelve suns asking the question to kokuhso. His own mind hurt from the sound it had made. (Or something like that)

**I guess Zenebas found a zoidian that gave her the right to fight at full power.**

**"What zoidian would do that?"**

**Well I never specified how much zoidian blood was needed for the right to invoke a Kami's full power. Sure I made sure only a full blooded zoidian could unlock the full power on a religious site but part blooded Zoidians could unlock part of the power.**

_**"How much?"**_

**Judging by Lisa's power levels. **On cue a massive fire blast came by, much more powerful than the rest. **I was going to say 50-60 but now I think it's closer to 80-85 of her power.**

_**"Grand."**_Tom said with sarcasm. Then he ran out and blasted her with the power draining gun and his massive rapid fire rocket launcher. "DIE BITCH!!" The combined fire of the two as well as the sudden temporary power drop was enough to give her some temporary damage. The fact that Tom was firing two guns that were meant to be used with two hands and landing every shot caused more. With a flash the silver guns returned and made explosions galore, every one on target. The Gatling gun came out and landed a large percentage of hits. Then the two handheld guns with blades on their front came out and Tom fully unloaded those. Finally Tom produced his sword and went in for close range. Jumping up above the smoke and flaming rock where he assumed Lisa was, hoped Lisa has been and prayed that Lisa really wasn't he struck down. Not a one of his hopes were close. His fears were pretty accurate though.

A white dragon came out of the cloud and caught the sword. "Now I thought you and I were closer than that." Lisa said. Her voice carried very much a temptress tone of seduction. Her eyes had a glare that would make it obvious that she was lying. And her body was too surrounded by white flames to give anything away.

"If you thought that then you should have known I would have killed you if you became evil." Tom shouted as the energy wings appeared on his back and he began to try and push down.

"EVIL! You think I'm EVIL! What a crackpot!" Lisa glared at Tom, Tom glared right back. "So you're serious." Lisa said, regret in her voice.

"Damn straight." Tom said right back little emotion in his just focus.

"I had hoped to keep you alive. No matter what either of our moral compass said about each of us I'm sure you will not like killing me because we are both the last pure humans on the planet."

"I never liked killing anybody. But your death… Your death… Your death _will _be most saddening."

"It was the same when Sylvia died. I never liked her all that much but still her death did touch me. You on the other hand I liked."

"I'd be touched save for the fact that you were always manipulating. Back on earth I had found you shortly after you had been apprehended for trying to start a rebellion. One I had a part in putting down. Damn I was an idiot my gut told me to avoid you but you were to good looking to pass up. Back when you were Chezneckia Dorell and your face still looked good because it hadn't been tainted by the darkness of your soul."

"Are you calling me ugly?" Lisa asked a playful whim on her voice.

Tom responded with all seriousness in his voice, "Not really. I'm just saying why deprive the world of the true beauty because of the darkness in your soul."

"Interesting answer. I'll make sure your death is quick and painless. Either that or you'll live and join me at some point."

"Death is the more likely of the two. Although it is rather improbable."

"You say you're more powerful than _**ME!!" **_Tom was waiting for that, the spirit within Lisa had come out in a fit of rage and would, hopefully make a full transition into offense. Leaving her with no defense what so ever. Tom was right. A mass of white flame came at him to be met with Tom's power negator. A shot right to the eye made a violent impact and her face seemed to explode.

Breathing a rather sigh of relief, despite being covered in blood from the attack, Tom turned around to face his gang. _**"Kokuhso would you know if any of them have zoidian heritage?"**_

**No, the Kami tried to avoid Zoidians at all costs. But one thing I do know is that Zoidians have a terrible fear of Kami manifesting. So if anyone is terribly deathly pathologically afraid of Lisa then they could be a zoidian. **Tom looked at his team, most of there were that afraid. **Alright it's not perfect but it does eliminate three people.**

Tom walked over to the closest scared person, John, "John I need you to do something."

"What?" John said as he hid behind a computer terminal deathly afraid.

"Give me permission to fight."

"Sure take it go beat her!" Tom faced Lisa and pointed his hand, nothing happened.

"Crap next person." He came to Devon again caught tight in fetal position. "Oh joy." Tom muttered as he shot Lisa with as many shots he could do with is power canceller stopping her for a bit longer. "Devon I need you to give me permission to fight."

"What will that do, she'll kill us all anyway."

"DAMN IT DO IT MAN!" Tom shouted at his face. He was not in the mood to play nice. On a whim he produced several guns with lots of ammo or laser based firing and passed it to the three people not so afraid they wouldn't move, Bekah Perrone and Fred. "You three shoot her, but if she shoots back duck and/or run at your best discretion." Tom focused on Devon, "Look give me permission and I guarantee she'll go I really do."

"Fine then go beat her, do whatever just keep her away from us!"

Tom pointed at Relena, nothing happened. "AGAIN? CRAP!" Tom ran over to the next person as his team mates blasted Lisa with whatever they could. Which, honestly, was all the time. At Oliver, who was less afraid then John and Devon but still wouldn't dare move, Tom asked, "Will you give me the permission to beat her?"

"You don't need my permission kick her ass." Oliver had the guts to actually point his hand at Lisa around his cover.

Tom ran to reddy expecting more nothing and with the point of a finger he wasn't disappointed. "GOD DAMN IT WHERE'S A ZOIDIAN POD WHEN YOU NEED ONE!!" On cue Tom saw reddy hiding in an open one. "That was lucky. True it was just the word not the spirit but I ain't complaining. Reddy do you give me the permission to have no restraints mental physical or otherwise no regrets nothing holding me back to beat her and save us all if not the world from the Zenebas menace that she is helping to create." Tom had truly poured his heart into that request. Reddy was his last hope and for his survival and many others he had to be a zoidian who would grant him the permission.

"No."

"No?" Tom said confused beyond belief. "I'll save you if I do this. If I don't you all die."

"But if I say you can fight then you'll be like her."

"No I won't she is bad she wants, at best, to do things her way. At worst she just wants to destroy to kill. I want to help. We are two opposite forces who are stuck in eternal conflict. I can at least stop her from fighting here now."

"No, all Kami are bad people. I don't like any of them. You I like cause you're not a Kami but kokuhso I hate. Never use him ever dad."

Tom was conflicted he was being hated and loved at the same time. But also he was making a revelation. "All Kami are bad? But you only know one!"

"No all Kami are bad I know that. I lived with you on the hope that you would never use your Kami and I won't let you use him now."

_A pathological deathly terrible fear of Kami. Thousands of years of warfare just to make your enemies immortal and stronger. Zenebas taking interest in a boy like him to extremes they wouldn't dare even with me. This boy is an ancient zoidian. _Tom stopped stepping back. He felt so conflicted, sure he had resolved to have a better outlook on life but Zoidians had no reason to like him. Inside of him was the spirit of a zoidian foe for all time, Kokuhso the falling star. And he himself was the unknown mass murder of almost all of zoidian society. He had thought to make this kid his adopted son. There was so much wrong with it. He felt like giving reddy a gun and asking him to shoot him in the head until he was dead. But Tom couldn't die now, not until he had saved one more zoidian life. "Damn it this sucks!" Tom shouted as he grabbed reddy activated his energy wings and took off. He needed to get reddy to safety. As he just started a white flame clipped his wing and made Tom drop reddy and made Tom fly onto a small flat point of land.

Another much more massive flame came at reddy, Tom only thought about saving him as he leapt. Reddy looked to see the flame come and didn't even notice the human blur charging at him with two guns ready to blast at that very, very, very, very powerful pillar of pure white heaven fire that would destroy reddy in a heartbeat. Tom was in the way just the instant reddy said, "Don't let it destroy me Tom, please."

Tom didn't think about right and wrong for a moment, he just wanted to save the kids life, Kokuhso did too. And then he manifested fully, something he could only do with Zoidians permission. A massive black dragon erupted out of Tom's two hands that had been placed forwards to block the oncoming assault of heaven fire. The dragon flew forwards and impacted Lisa into the wall above the birthing pool. "I won't let her touch you." Tom said to reddy, who wasn't daring to look. He had good reason, Kokuhso in his full 100 manifestation was a massive black dragon that partly enwrapped Tom and the rest of him was covered in black flames.

Then Lisa spoke but not with her voice, the voice she spoke with echoed like a grand voice of some supreme spirit. **"KOKUHSO YOU TRAITOR!"** The voice was very loud and was shouting at a massive flaming black dragon head.

Tom's body stepped back in confusion, he had expected himself to be addressed not the spirit of the being in him. Instead that spirit spoke back. **"Oh shut up Yosei. It's been ten thousand years plus plenty. Can't you let go of the past."**

**"Never. You betrayed our people cast them into these spiritual forms and right when we were starting to enjoy the immortality it gave us, even at the cost of our ability to interfere with the world around us, you made that damn counter seal to make us nothing!"**

**"Don't you see, this spirituality is a never ending purgatory in which we suffer through? By returning our spirits to the land we can heal the land to what it was like before the impact occurred!" **For a moment kokuhso seemed to be done but then Tom coughed. **"And there is the matter of sealing nearly all the mana of the earth up with this contract as well."**

**"YOU WHAT!!" **Yosei screamed. Lisa looked confused. She was just a mortal in combat of the gods, much like Tom.

**"That is the true and honest reason I made the contract. I was content in living in purgatory for as long as this planet existed. However when I realized I caught all of the planets mana in the seal I knew I needed a way to undo it. Well after all of your damn interference in my attempts to make the scroll 5,000 years ago I was unable to use my first generation power to activate it so I simply hid it here praying for some chance to come along soon. Damn that was dumb of me. Five thousand years and all we get are three people. Fact is we need to return the power to the land soon because the land is slowly dieing. If we don't do it all life on the planet may die!"**

**"I'm not worried I will finish the seal reverse." **Tom kokuhso and everyone who had understood the conversation let out a sigh of relief. **"But first I will kill you!" **With a white explosion Yosei broke free.

**"Don't waste you time Yosei. You aren't at full power and even if you were I'd still be stronger because I sealed all of me away in the initial sealing."**

**"That's why I will fight to seal it myself because you left some provision for the sealer to remain stronger than the rest."**

**"So you can't win, unlike you I still can fully truly manifest, more than I have now. If you want to win truly give it your all."**

**"It's your funeral." **Yosei muttered. Then a large white dragon that barely seemed to be real appeared before them above the pool. It seemed to be almost the size of a whale king and probably would have been had it not been curled up to a height where it damaged the roof greatly. Above Yosei's eyes was a human figure that looked like Lisa naked from the waist up.

Then where Tom had been there was a greater and fully real black dragon. It seemed to be almost twice the size of Yosei, much thicker and fully real, every part was clearly visible. **"You were saying?" **Kokuhso asked. A Tom like figure above his eyes produced guns. The Lisa looking figure did too. Then they charged.

Both humans firing at whatever they could hit the two dragons collided in massive power explosion. Disturbed from his fear by the lights that still got to his eyes despite them being closed, covered with his arms and facing the ground Reddy got up to look because apparently curiosity is a very predictable and strong force for Zoidians as well as humans. He saw a figure he could clearly recognize as Tom merged with a massive black dragon. That figure was pushing around a much weaker looking white dragon in a massive random seeming pattern. "What is going on!?" Reddy asked as he backed up to go away from the fight.

Fred caught him within all of two seconds. "Reddy, you do realize that Tom summoned his dragon to save you right?"

"You think I care!" He shouted as he tried to run. Fred started using his whole arm to stop him instead of his foot like he did before.

"Tell me, what do you think she would have done if she had killed you and Tom in that one blast when Tom saved you?"

"Um, I don't know."

"Let me give you what is most likely the correct answer, she would kill us all and the Zenebas army would be able to overrun everything in a heartbeat. Hell she might just spare you because you're an ancient zoidian, and let me tell you from experience, I've seen two Zoidians who were captured by Zenebas, they begged me for death and I granted that request to the second one I saw because she was that much worse than the first."

"What!" Reddy said backing away, "I, I'm just an orphan nothing more nothing less."

"Look that's still true, but the fact is your parents abandoned you in a stasis chamber four thousand years ago."

"No, there's no way in hell I can be a zoidian. I'm just a normal human being like all of you. That's who I am."

"Kid only a zoidian can let Kokuhso out in his full power here and he came out when you _hinted _that you wanted his help. This proves two things, one you're an ancient zoidian. Two; that contract thing that he talks about is apparently based largely on the Kami's personal interpretation of when assistance is needed. True my second observation is rather useless right now, but I think you still should know that anyway."

"I can't be a zoidian. Tom said that he was going to adopt me and he's the leader of the fleet that crashed into the moon and killed the Zoidians!" Fred's eyes opened very wide as did everyone else's who heard. Then on cue a small strand of white fire came at Fred. Reddy turned around and shouted, "STOP NOW YOU KAMI!" Millimeters away from Fred's skull the white flame disappeared as well as both dragons. Instead Tom was in front of reddy with a sword in hand and Lisa was opposite him with a small energy knife in each hand. "Tom I-"

Tom raised an arm to stop reddy. "The fight isn't over yet. I still have to kill her." He and Lisa both were breathing raggedly and had severe wounds on various parts of their persons from fighting. On cue both of their belts fell off. "And with only this versus those things…" On cue Lisa's knives became much longer, "Well I need as much concentration as I can get."

Fred looked at the belt, "What the hell happened to that thing?"

"Just temporarily fired due to the power that was being used there. I can fix it with ease."

"Need help buddy?" Fred asked pulling out his standard issue side arm.

"No I can handle one last go."

"Well it's just that for the percent power advantage you were supposed to have on her you seem beat up and tired."

"Yosei must be stronger than Kokuhso's memory suggests. Maybe she was training or something but as we were we were almost even in power. That means I have to get better."

**That's because your emotions were really out of whack. You're too damn conflicted I can't operate anywhere near full power with you like this. **Kokuhso said as he popped into Tom's head for a moment.

"One more question." Fred said.

"Speak."

"Do you mean to make Reddy your adopted child?"

"If I live and he'll live with a psycho father like me, yeah."

"I see." Fred said with a grin. "Reddy, I think you should accept your father for who he really is."

"What do you mean?" Reddy said confused.

"Let him summon kokuhso."

"Nah." Tom interjected. "Me and Lisa have something to do finish. And now that Kokuhso and Yosei got out their conflict we need to finish ours." Tom then took up a ready stance. Lisa gripped both of her knives in a way that she could strike with the most attacks. Then they charged.

Tom got in a strike deep into Lisa's chest piercing all the way through. Lisa got two cuts in on Tom, one low on his right abdomen cutting a few inches in from the side, the other right below Tom's left shoulder blade. Tom had finished his momentum it seemed but Lisa looked like she had been in stage one of a deadly strike. "You won. You stupid bastard." Lisa irked out as she fell pulling the laser blades out with her.

Tom barely winced as the blades made more gruesome cuts into his body. "I'm not sure who won yet, it may be a tie." He fell down to, with a laser blade stuck in a cut near his shoulder and one big hole in his side. "Damn this hurts." Tom mumbled as he pushed a button on the sword and had the laser blade disappear. "Better…" Tom said and then passed out, perhaps to simply die.

"He beat me." Lisa was mumbling. "I can't believe it he beat me." Then she died.

-End-

Well the evil girl is dead, and perhaps the hero it too, but I doubt it, he's just about immortal. So expect him to live cause there is a sequel, maybe two!


	14. Chapter 14

Rebirth of the Guardians – the long awaited sequel to chapter – 13

Rebirth of the Guardians – the long awaited sequel to chapter – 13

Chapter 14 – the secret organization known as backdraft

As you can guess from the title the backdraft will have some role to play in this chapter, but I guarantee you it's not the type of role they play in new century zero, cause they're still a fledgling evil organization. Also things will become less depressing from here on in. (And maybe less violent, ah who am I kidding, author begins a psychotic laugh, lights in fire by using strange demonic powers and then gets put out by a bucket of water)

-Begin-

Some two days after the very violent blood loss induced near coma Tom awoke lying on some hard rocks, the first that hurt was his back, then everywhere else. Tom had leapt up in the middle of the night and no-one near him had been awake to see him get up. However at Tom's feet Reddy was sleeping and around him he could see many of the guys doing the same. With a glance at the door Tom's super eyes could see a zoid standing right below the doorway and a person sitting at the doorway looking out. The zoid was a blade liger, it's pilot could be anybody, and the person at the door looked to be Perrone. Tom lay back down, his entire body hurt, but he was alive and he could find out what happened later, right now he needed a good rest.

The middle of the next day Tom awoke again, with less pain this time, except in his back, there he hurt more. Still Tom felt it would not be as excruciatingly painful for him to sit up. So he did, he did it slowly and his various wounds from getting blasted by ephemeral lasers and stabbed with laser swords feeling very tender when he moved. Other than that he felt, ok he felt horrible, physically emotionally, every which way he felt like scum or someone who had been beaten half to death. The only bonus was that evil Zenebas emperor fellow had no more of the first generation humans to support him and one that opposed him. And the power that Tom could wield would turn a good half the world against him in a heartbeat if he tried. If he didn't try he could win over a fifth. Although first he needed to survive.

In the three seconds that Tom had all those thoughts run through his head everyone had come over to him and had begun on the typical route of questions that all had to be answered, starting with are you ok, to which the answer was, ow. And it continued for some 40 minutes until only reddy Perrone and John were around Tom. Finally Tom got in a question edgewise. "Did you bury Lisa?"

For a moment John Perrone and reddy looked at each other as they remembered the events that had happened right after the battle ended.

Tom had fallen to the ground and everyone had run to him immediately. As they began to wrap up his wounds with what they had available the ground around Lisa began to shake. After a moment everyone noticed it. Looking to her corpse they could see her slowly getting up, sword fully impaled through her chest. "Did you think I was that easy to kill…?" She trailed as she slipped down the blade. "I wasn't quite such easy prey as to fall victim to that." Three guns were trained on her in a heartbeat. "Well I guess if you all shoot me now I'd probably die though…" Then the ground around her shook more. Then it began to fracture around her. Everyone backed further and further away from the cracking ground. Tom's body momentarily forgotten in their fear. Then the stones rose up from the ground in a near perfect circle around Lisa's body. They came and formed a spiral that completely covered her body, sounds could be heard and when the stone retracted back into the ground all that was left was a clean sword serving as a grave marker, and then there was Tom's bloody sword lying on the ground as well. It was as if Lisa hadn't been there ever.

After remembering that even the consensus was, "Yes." As John said. They had removed the other sword and stored it away so that Tom wouldn't have to deal with what actually happened. Although in retrospect, at least that of john, the guy could probably handle it with ease and as much grace as he could muster given the situation and probably make more sense out of it than they ever could.

Tom nodded and decided to lie down, as his muscles relaxed from keeping him up he felt better. Kokuhso also decided to speak. **They're lying. **The spirit said. **Since we share minds you know what I've been seeing in the mana leylines. Something happened and Lisa was taken away from them by a magical force. And then some other sword was put back in her place.**

**Just like with Sylvia. **Tom thought back to kokuhso, **We of the last humans are too special to die by a simple stab through the chest. I had no doubt Lisa lived through what I did to her. However I had thought that the guys would have shot her until she was dead though. But you seem to have discouraged that thought path as well. Well that's ok with me, I'm content with her living, it's better than killing of someone who is practically the only other being with your pedigree on the planet.**

Kokuhso thought about what Tom said then replied plainly, **I concur.**

Tom lay on the still hard and still back tormenting ground wondering about where Lisa had gone, the fate of Zenebas now, the fate of the guardian force, how Jaina was, when would he re-join the war effort, would he wield his power of being the last of the humans from planet earth during the course of the war, what zoid would he use, could he build a fleet of ships to take him to the moon, where had the globally three crash landed, and thousands of other things that he wanted, needed, or had planned to get done. Had there been survivors on the discovery had always been a vague hope of his, he had known of the starboard pods ejecting, but never the port. The discovery had always been tough enough to survive something like that, explosive enough it had been, Tom simply just had become more motivated to go find out now that Lisa and Sylvia were, for all practical purposes, dead.

In a miracle five days after waking up Tom felt ready to explore the caverns saying that since it had been guarded, full of all this machinery and stuck in an obscure location it had to house, or have housed, something important. Being the only one willing to search the base and also still not really being strong enough to search randomly on his own he simply sat down in front of a computer terminal that looked like it worked and began hacking the Device. When Tom quickly found that the particular terminal had nothing of value, he simply went on to another. The second one he hit was much better guarded, but still took only a short while to hack. While it lacked a map or contents of the base that wasn't already known there was a syndicate name that appeared in the file as well as synopsis of the forces in general that were not top secret. This was the force that they faced off with when entering. And the groups name was, backdraft, they wished to mess with the world of zoid battles for personal monetary gain and perhaps eventual political or extreme military power. Their current backers were few in number but had great amounts of money. Tom took some time to burn all of the computers information to a disk. And then as he returned to the first computer he did the same, and thus he continued to the next computer with security twelve times more challenging to crack than the last one, it took Tom a whole three hours to get through with a special hacking program and help from the computer savvy members of the team. Finally Tom figured out it was the experimental unit terminal once the device was hacked. Included was a human genetic experiment that involved his own DNA crossed with a zoidian, the project was deemed a failure in it's 'original task' whatever that may be, but it was declared a success for general purposes and had been sold off to the Zenebas army with twelve others like it and one clone of just Thomas himself. The Tom-zoidian clones had been reported to have become Ultrasaurus commanders in the invasion, but the pure Thomas one had been said to pilot the Gael fury. Tom thought back to that pilot, he had seen his face and while he hadn't recognized it at the time he now realized the pilot had looked almost exactly like himself. Stopping in shock Tom sat in his chair simply bringing his mind around that concept, glad that he hadn't killed his own clone, and sad that one of his half clones, practically his own child genetically, had been killed by his hands. After twenty minutes Tom returned to hacking the computers finding data on an experimental zoid that had just cleared the safety testing stage. The fact that it was guaranteed not to explode in Tom's face was a key reason he picked it in particular. Tom looked at the zoid, the shadow fox was what it was called. The zoid would be appropriate to a true ghost fox. With a moment of observing the technology and noting the many earth influences that were present in the technology, then he copied the data onto a disk of his own and went to the last working computer terminal. Searching its varyingly classified files he found a map of the base which he was able to get on paper. After feeling thankful for the new zoid and the convenient directions Tom decided the next day was his day to search.

At the dinner that night Tom explained his proposal, "Since we are running low on food ammunition and I need some raw materials to fix the belts and a new zoid I think that we need to go explore the rest of this base to get that stuff."

"You wha?" Fred said. "I can understand the food ammunition, and even to a degree the raw materials, and I can understand why you'd want to take it from the scum balls but why a new zoid?"

Tom sat still, he had just hoped that they would just let him do this and let it be over with. But apparently that would not be. "Well," he said whipping together the best story he could on the spot, "I need a better zoid because I've long surpassed the command wolf's limit."

"Why not make a new zoid and use the command wolf as a base. You could call it a 'ghost fox'." Fred said with a laugh.

"Because there's an already made zoid right here for me. It's called the shadow fox and fits the bill of what you just said perfectly."

"No." Fred muttered, "There's no way in hell that mere Zi technology, not yet equal to that of the colonists from the globally three had, could surpass what you could build."

"If I had every single damn manufacturing device that they had on earth when I left. But as it stands the only place where technology of that sort _could _be manufactured happens to be stuck on the moon as a massive spaceship. The discovery is its name; I think I told you about it."

Fred looked at Tom, "You've got a point there. Well since I've heard you got a map I suppose I won't oppose the idea of you getting stronger anymore."

Tom sighed, the only reason he wanted a new zoid was simply to try and forget about his dead comrades more. One day that command wolf would be upgraded as Tom saw fit, but that day would not be any day soon. "Well then I've got to work out how to divide up the search teams, I can't get everything without a zoid myself."

The next day the groups were split into three groups, Tom made himself his own group; he just had to find a zoid. And walk what looked to be some 10 miles to the zoid, gravely injured, but no-one would believe a man that crazy could be beaten by a ten mile walk that he wanted to take. The other groups were to just look for Ammunition and food each.

How Tom had been able to get by himself was a miracle in and of itself. It had something to do with his every power of suggestion and then some. However why he wanted to go was more predictable. The fact is he was planning to leave and finish the war on his own terms once he got the shadow fox. He was going to return to the village that they had all fled from; attacking every Zenebas zoid he came across and then add on some devices to blast the Zenebas capitol to smithereens. With the emperor dead Tom would pray for a quick surrender or he would rip half the nation to shreds. He may even do more, he happened to have things planned that Zi had never seen before and if it weren't' for him they would never see ever. But he was ready to unleash things on the world that would guarantee the end of the war.

However those were all last resorts on paper still, he had yet to find the means to actually make a single plan of his other than this one reality. And honestly once it was over he was going over to the other much more peaceful continent on the planet. Of course, as he promised, Tom would adopt reddy and take him with him. And odds are Tom would get reddy's black reddler and his command wolf and take them with him. Maybe then he would start work on his plan. Or perhaps maybe not.

Meanwhile the two groups were intent on finding what they had been looking for. Group one's leader was Perrone, since he was best at cooking. In the group were Bekah, Devon, and Fred. Bekah and Devin both decent cooks with no surprise to anyone, the surprise was that Fred was a genius chef who could do things that even Perrone couldn't when it came to cooking. Along for the ride was the blade liger they had found and Freds storm sworder.

In the ammunition group reddy was the leader being better than even Fred in combat and almost equal to Tom. Also reddy had special military training to discern what would be best for everyone to use. The rest of the group went down into the darkness of the ammunition stores with a safe code and map of the area. They were simply going to find the ammunition for their Zoids and nothing more. With them was the black reddler and Tom's command wolf. Their team was also going to be the more mobile in all likelihood because reddy could pilot the black reddler in tight areas, even long extended caves. Sure he would have some difficulty but he could definitely do it.

Tom, of course was walking alone. He had wanted to do this alone. He had wanted to just ponder life the universe and everything on his own even going so far as to use every single mental barrier tool in his disposal to block kokuhso out of his thoughts, to which kokuhso mentally said, **You could have just asked. **And then shut up anyway.

Tom walked down the long, long passage way flipping the scroll around as he looked at it. Finally after a very long time he sat down and opened up the scroll. "Kokuhso, I just want to get this done now so a) you can get back at full power, even if by very in-honorable means. And b) I don't have to _really _worry about my safety more than I have been worrying." Tom put his hands over the scroll in a way that seemed to happen without him really trying and then the black flames poured onto the scroll. "Um is this not going to utterly total the scroll?" Tom asked as he watched waves of black fire wash over the scroll. After getting no response and seeing the wave of fire not stop Tom simply assumed it was fine and he began to try and summon up some power on his own.

Granted because he himself wasn't a super powerful magical being he couldn't summon a lot… Well that would be a lie to say because he actually was producing a massive amount of power, enough to let kokuhso momentarily loose his total focus on the act he was partaking in at the moment and ask. **Do you know what you're doing?**

"Not really, no. But I am doing it and it is succeeding so what does it matter."

**It matters because I don't know if it will help or hurt. There's more than one type of energy that this thing will respond to in the universe I guarantee you!**

"Then let me match your energy frequency." Tom said as he looked at the black flames both intently and in an aloof manner at once. After a moment more black flames seem to explode into the paper. "Better?" Tom asked as the amount of power he input seemed to quintuple. If kokuhso had a head he would have bobbed it up and down in shock.

However after several minutes of throwing huge amounts of energy at the scroll nothing seemed to be happening. **Damn. **Kokuhso muttered.

"I'm guessing the 'damn' has to deal with this not working yet."

**I completely underestimated the energy needed to get this thing to work. Even with the energy you're inputting it still would take ages for the thing to work. Even with me at full power as well.**

"You weren't at full power?" Tom asked as his energy input increased slightly.

**Well you said you wanted it done, and 'full power' really means little if I input the right amount of mana at the correct rate. With the energy I'm putting in now I could almost keep going forever. However it would take maybe a month or more to get this thing to work. And if it takes to long the mana starts to dissipate too. The fact is we need to do this in one big burst of energy that we don't have.**

Tom glared at the spot where the contract was then he stood up while still glaring. "WILL THIS DO!?" Tom shouted at the top of his lungs as a large white dragon and a strange titanic creature came out of him and sent masses of energy into the contract. In a heartbeat the blast of power made the contract work, and created a very odd effect across the world.

First the various Kami spirit scattered about the world began to ripple and come apart. Then their small blobs of spiritual form became visible to the world. This caused mass confusion world wide and actually stopped the invasion in its tracks. Then the blobs began to disappear into the earth. Then all of the immediate effects were done like that. While the effects may have been grand it really wasn't much for the climax that had been built up to this.

In the cavern in the zoidian city Tom looked at the spot where the contract had been. He felt rather exhausted, but at the same time somewhat rejuvenated. At least he was capable of standing up and walking. And he was fully healed to boot. Tom got up trying to remember what he had done and how he had done it, but everything was a total haze and Tom abandoned all hope of remembering when kokuhso said, **You don't need to do that again. I think the era of magical super beings can be declared done. I just hope that energy will restore ZI.** Tom really wasn't thinking about that. He was more confused about what he had done and was wondering if it could be used in the war he was going to have to fight.

Still other duties that could be definitely be executed now had to be taken care of first. Tom could walk, talk, breathe, blink and think without pain of any sort now. He needed to get to that zoid. It had abilities that could get him into the Zenebas capitol and combat abilities good enough to get him out. And most importantly it was a zoid that no-one should recognize. Unless this backdraft organization should have people working in the Zenebas capitol in which case it really wouldn't matter anyway cause if someone cared enough to try and rat him out then it was too late, any non-Zenebas troops would be shot down because they would be declared conspirators and Tom would either have temporary allies in the act of bombarding the capitol or fewer enemies to deal with in the short term. Neither of which were circumstances unfavorable to him.

Tom started walking, and then he realized he could run _real fast_, so then he did that. At his top speed it took Tom one short hour to reach the door that would secure the shadow fox from the rest of the world. Tom entered the password that was on the computer and watched as the big doors opened in front of him. There lay the shadow fox beta version. The zoid that would terrorize the Zenebas capitol and end the war.

-End-


	15. Chapter 15

Rebirth of the Guardians – the long awaited sequel to chapter – 14

Rebirth of the Guardians – the long awaited sequel to chapter – 14

Chapter 15 - into the capitol

I think this is gonna be the chapter where a lot of cool violent fighting stuff happens and the hero's rally. In a very effective manner to boot. Also this chapter is definitely influenced by tengen toppen gurren lagann. So expect manly action and the kicking of reason to the curb.

And to boot it begins right in the thick of the action. (W00t!)

-Begin-

The capitol had been forced into the security bunkers that had been prepared when Zenebas was losing the war. The entire city defenses and defense squad, as well as many private Zoids with guns had been sent out to fight. Losses were heavy and some forces were routed to the point of never having any purpose of being there in the first place it seemed.

All of this because of one intruder.

Two dozen Zoids barricaded a narrow gateway with the large reinforced steel gate behind them. And they were in front of a big building which had three big gates and guns pointed at each gate before they open and revealed the intruder. There were a mass of Zoids, all various makes, pointed down the five roads where the intruder could come from. He picked the widest one to come down, the one that pointed directly at the gate where the enemy could all maneuver down to. Gatling gun fire could be heard as Zoids were hit by it, and gained large holes in their armor.

"The hell where is he!" The guard commander shouted as he looked around with all his instruments. They found him, almost three miles down the block at the edge of the newest part of the capitol city's suburb sprawl. "How can he do that!? What is he a demon?"

His zoid fit the bill. It had the base body of a shadow fox, but the body was almost all black, less of the brown and gold and green accents, but they still were flecked around. Also there was red in place of most of the other colors appearance. The legs had some more bulky armor around the top of them. There were odd army green boxes that seemed strapped on his sides. But the most interesting change was the main weapon of the shadow fox. The Gatling gun. It was still present, but it was now all black and almost twice as wide in diameter. There was a large barrel which the Gatling barrels traveled around. And the large inner barrel had a very wide bore, it was pretty damn wide. The actual Gatling barrels also were obscenely large. They were practically the size of a standard cannon each. And all were actual energy weapons so they didn't lose power until they hit something and they would keep firing until the barrel over heated.

Inside the cockpit Tom could be seen wearing a green vest with various adornments. A screen blinked on his extensive command screen. "Well the gatling is overheated. Time to fire the main cannon." The Gatling gun came to a full stop and the center barrel began to glow yellow. Then after three seconds of charging it fired a massive yellow beam almost as wide as the shadow fox down the broad avenue. It impacted the wall despite all (rather pathetic but numerous) attempts to stop it. And when it impacted the wall it had grown in size while managing to keep a constant power. The beam ripped through all three gates and destroyed the gatehouse and defenders in one go. In his cockpit Tom could be seen sweating from the heat the shot generated inside the zoid. "Well that was easy enough." He pressed a button on his radio transmitter. "This is the hero calling in the Calvary. Do you hear me 'the Calvary'?"

"It's just Calvary and yes." Came Tom's voice over the radio.

"That was the signal no?" Tom asked.

"Wait for it."

Then shells fell on the city around the entire outer wall and the one behind it as well as the city in between. "Damn you're good." Tom grinned as he took off. "By the way glad to hear that you're in charge.

"Glad to hear you've survived this long." Came back the reply of Tom's clone.

"I could same the same about you no-name. Clones have rarely been as successful as you have in the past, both here and where I come from."

"Maybe it's all the stuff you got keeping you alive." The clone, who called himself no-name muttered. "I reportedly even have some changes to my genes from 'normal' human genes because of it all."

Tom laughed, "Sounds about right." He muttered as he leapt through the gate that had just been blown away. "Well I hope the rest of the Calvary comes soon, or else I get the whole city to myself." On cue a storm sworder and black reddler flew over head of him, and a command wolf joined him on the ground. "Good." Tom then put on an extra burst of speed, "CAPITOL OR BUST!" He shouted as a massive army spewed into the city from the front and all sides.

-Five months earlier-

Tom had been able to find the shadow fox and pilot it to the entrance but he had found that the food group had returned first. So his plan to leave was done. He didn't really care he had only tried to run cause the plan would kill all of them if they came. And while he could only imagine the stupid sequence where the hero's allies dramatically sacrificed themselves willingly Tom just didn't want to see that, he could live the entire time and he could, well he could possibly win. It was a legitimate sequence of events, especially with his new zoid. Well first things first, what he had done to his command wolf. "Guys I want to dip all of our Zoids into this pool."

"You what?" Fred asked.

"Well you don't have to, but I've put my command wolf into every zoid birthing pool I've found and I've noted a 20 increase from its original output every time I've done it."

"How many times have you done it?" Fred asked as he acted defensive to his storm sworder.

"Four times. In theory after this its core output should rise to 200. Actually I measured this shadow fox's output and it's already been dipped. So I won't put it in. But I will be putting my command wolf into the pool when John gets back with it."

"What does dipping a zoid into a birthing pool do?" Perrone asked as he began to cut up a vegetable of questionable identity.

"I guess since zoid birthing pools are giant zoid creators they have the natural ability to enhance a zoid that enters one. I guess it was just a fluke the first time and it worked out so I kept doing when I encountered birthing pools that weren't guarded beyond a chance of a stealthy entry into the pool.

"No I mean what are the end results of all that extra power?"

"Oh. Well one it's more power for the parts. My command wolf has, or at least can have, very power consuming part because I know how to use the extra core output. Not to mention the standard stuff is crazy beyond belief to begin with. But some optional parts for my command wolf can do some things that are almost equal in power to a charged particle beam. I left those at home, but I plan to pick them up though."

"'Plan to pick them up'? What for?"

"I will personally rip the Zenebas capitol to shreds and stop this god forsaken war. The chancellor of the Zenebas Empire is a dictator who will oppress and murder the people rampantly if he is allowed to succeed at this. I plan to either kill him or take over his capitol. Either way this invasion will change gears fast. Then, once I can hold the capitol I will start destroying the fragile Zenebas communications network and laugh as the invasion begins to be eaten away from the inside."

"Great plan." Perrone said once he finished cutting his vegetable and had picked up another. "One problem. There aren't even ten of us and the Zenebas capitol is to well defended for us to hold and good old chancellor boy is out somewhere."

"That's where a radio transmission I picked up comes in." Tom said with a grin. "I heard that a guardian force counter strike task group was able to take a Zenebas fortress within easy striking range of the capitol. The fortress is a particularly big one and was reported, in the radio transmission I got, to have over a thousand Zoids. Plus the attack force's eighty Zoids and two hundred potential pilots. They are also picking up dissident citizens who want to end this and other rebel groups that exist in the area. Also they picked up someone who looks exactly like me who wants this war done." Tom grinned; he knew who it was he had a valuable ally in there.

"So that's how you plan to do it. But again one more problem, how do you attract pilots I can tell you it won't be easy." Perrone said as he started cutting his third vegetable.

Tom laughed, "My name, my past, my future. I myself am a valuable weapon for propaganda. I've drawn people in the past and I can do it again, especially with the resources I've got soon to be at my disposal."

"So when are we leaving?" Perrone asked.

"Tomorrow. It's everyone at once and we're making a bee line to that fort, stopping only to pick people up. And supplies as needed."

Perrone and everyone else grinned. "Remind me to never underestimate you again." Fred muttered as he looked into a container on the side of his zoid. He came out with a bottle of wine. "Got quite the wine cellar these guys do. I picked up about half a dozen bottles while we were getting other stuff I think we can give him one drink for his brilliant plan." Fred muttered producing a glass. "These were also theirs. One for every member, past and present, of the crew."

Tom nodded, "A bit early perhaps, but to victory." He said extending a hand for the cup.

"Aye sir." Fred smirked.

The next day the entire group left and headed north. Every town they came across Tom got out and spoke, he was perhaps not the best speaker ever but he was more than good enough. In forty two towns he directly drew around one hundred people. During the march in between towns he picked up another hundred. And those were those with Zoids. Without Zoids there were some three hundred angry people.

During the march Tom and the main members of the 'brigade' met with people who were elected to represent the whole group that was trailing with them and tell them the 'secret' parts of the plan, which was the whole plan. And then they told the leaders to leak the information without telling the people directly. And tom also told them to try and go a bit faster because he didn't want to go slow in his shadow fox. Which got a couple laughs from everyone, but got them to speed up a bit when on the march.

Over the whole trip they had several battle encounters but were able to handle every one with ease. The final stretch, that was across the valley that lay below the Zenebas capitol was the one where the most intense combat had been expected so there was no stopping. But no-one tried to attack them. Finally they mounted the hill in front of the base and opened up a radio channel. Tom was the one to speak in his old uniform from his earth force re-created. "This is the united peacekeeping force (UPF) here. We want to know if you want to join us and take down that city over there."

"No-name why are you on the radio." Was the first reply.

"I'm not no-name. I'm Tom valentine leader of the UPF and I've come to finish a war. Fact is I need your help to do so." After several minutes a video channel was opened.

"You say you ain't no-name and your zoid confirms it, but you sure look just like him." Said the soldier on the other end.

Tom sighed. "Just let us in. If not I'll go blow up the city now." This had been hearable by everyone in the formation so a big shout rose up. "I know how to motivate the masses." Tom grinned.

"Alright if you say so we'll let you in."

Once they were in the serious stuff began. Tom had said three months after they got there they would be ready to strike back. He had two reasons; the people without Zoids would need time to practice. And two was to modify his shadow fox in a place that he could. That modification would take three months but it would be worth it. Also, upon request he would modify his command wolf that john was borrowing to the best of his ability.

In the end his shadow fox got more smoke screen deployers in front and on the sides. There were bulky add on's to the legs that had smoke missiles which when fired landed and became massive black smoke generators. Also he added a special earth technology, the beam cannon. He only had the ability to make one and it was one the modified shadow fox Gatling gun, but it sure had one hell of a punch. His command wolf got a massive outfitting with modified movement technology. As well as the shadow fox had, to everything at cutting edge level. He had been able to train the mechanics to be able to build his earth technology with relative ease about a week after he gave them a new design. So that way they were able to modify several Zoids and make them all super advanced. However when they tried to modify the old blade liger they found its technology was too old to modify in its current state. So they began a total overhaul of the zoid.

However they were only able to sacrifice john and other pilots who happened to have mechanical skill to that cause because there were over 2,000 Zoids and more coming in to the small city that was forming around the base.

Stealing metal wood and other building supplies from the capitol they built a small city, and made a very visible structure from the capitol city even more visible and more obviously a member of their foe.

Their final challenge to the fort before the assault came two months after Tom's arrival. He had just completed the shadow fox's full modification and even had finished the paint job. While he was sticking those army green boxes on it he got a report. "Sir two of the four other fortresses have deployed almost all of their garrisons and they are headed this way. What do you want us to do?"

Tom bit his lip. He looked at his shadow fox custom and then grinded his lip. "Once these canisters are finished being attached I'll go out and face this army myself. I want no-one to mobilize to leave the fort just yet. The leader of the UPF will take care of this."

"Sir?" The messenger said confused.

"I have confidence in my abilities and my machine. I'm sure I'll be fine, send that message to the rest of the brigade leaders."

When the poor guy sent it to the representatives of members who followed the convoy on certain days, ones that represented various towns and the actual original commanders of the team that attacked this base were shocked. But the leader of the small base group, Perrone (what else can he do…) just smiled and said, "I've seen him do crazier. I don't think the force will be enough to stop him. They may slow him, but I'm not sure of even that.

Two days later the force of 3,000 Zoids faced one opponent who was at the very, very edge of the mesa, almost a mile from the well defended edge of the city base. Their opponent had their cockpit open and was standing up in it arms crossed. "You have two options surrender or die."

The approaching army opened fire. "I thought you could pick that one." Closing his cockpit Tom began his trip down the steep wall. He pointed his gun at the enemy and fired his gatling gun for about thirty seconds then out of nowhere a large yellow beam came out of it and ripped the enemy apart. "See what I mean." Tom muttered at the bottom. Then he smashed a button that made all of the green packs open up and launch missiles galore. They then fell off with a big thud and Tom charged into the enemy lines. He fired off all his smoke missiles and managed to cover a good part of the rear of the force in a massive smoke screen. Activating his own smoke jets he made his own smoke cloud as he impacted the line.

Once he was in the middle of the enemy he used his laser claws as well as all his long range weapons without even trying. Enemies fell around him like wheat before a wheat thresher. The smoke made the enemy aerial troops have a tougher time to try and find the enemy. True they had heat detectors, but one enemy among hundreds of allies, some who were shooting them down even, it was impossible they never even touched Tom. However after an hour of fighting the smoke finally began to clear and the loss of eight hundred Zoids became evident. Also evident was the lack of an enemy to fight. Once the smoke was finally cleared the mesa was the next target of everyone, but there was their foe that was waiting with his army this time to fight back. "Try it, I dare you." Tom said over the radio. The sad part was they did. With the entire force waiting on the high ground above them the enemy tried to mount the mesa. The fact was they were short about 900 guys, if not more, and they couldn't get enough guys up the cliff at one time to surpass the amount of fire that went down it. After thirty minutes the enemy gave up, with less than 1000 of the original 3000 still able to walk and many of those units were damaged too.

The brigade lost a mere 32 units by comparison. Tom sat on the cliff top and then faced the city. "I'm going to fire now since only I have the range." He said, and then he fired instantly. His shot went straight and impacted the capitol, right where the chancellor lived. No-one was home and he didn't kill the chancellor but the fact was he was miles away and able to make a massive shot on the city. It was obvious that that base was not an allied one and it wasn't even just a bunch of guys who wanted autonomy either they were actual enemies who were at war with the capitol.

-Back to the invasion-

Tom looked at his squad mates, at least a few of them. They were part of the actual invasion force that were to actually going to take the capitol and occupy when it was defeated. Tom was just the leader of the entire unit. He blasted his Gatling gun at a group of enemies who had tried to get in front of him. They were a group of shield ligers and deployed a shield in defense. Tom didn't feel setback, it was his first non instantaneous victory, so what. "Fire at will men." Tom said as everyone else let loose with him, damaging two of the shield ligers shields, and making one of those having a command system freeze. At least they stopped the enemy attacks to.

Tom bit his lip, the enemy shields were tough and he couldn't break them easily. The cannon was not fully charged yet and it would take too long to charge it now. Opening up his cockpit screen he slowed a bit and in a white flash had a gun appear. He had been able to fix his belt over three months too and was using it now. He fired it at the remaining ligers with shields and made them stop working, as well as left a large mark where the shot hit each zoid. Closing his cockpit Tom chewed his lip some more, those shields were tough. It was odd, there seemed to be a lot of earth technology present here that Tom knew of existing nowhere else. Suddenly a giant silver thing on two legs came out of a military building. It had two tubes extended off the right arm. The legs were like cones and had wide bases for feet. The arms ended in human like hands and they carried what looked to be large bazookas. Their shoulders were large and extended up past where the arms met the body some ways. There were humanoid heads for this machine, and other almost the same as it save for the weapons they carried in their hands. There were hand held machine guns, swords, missile launchers and other weapons galore. They also were at least 10 meters taller than the Zoids everyone was in.

Tom glared at the new enemy and blasted a few in a line with his buster cannon. He saw maybe about a dozen more deploy, accurate counts from other guys in the city, or looking at the city said there were about 36 of these giant robots. Tom had destroyed 4. "What are these things?" Reddy asked Tom instinctively.

"I'm not sure _exactly _what they are but I can guarantee you that they are based on mobile suit technology from earth."

"What?" Reddy replied.

"In short rampant giant humanoid robot technology. Except these are unlike any I've ever seen before. And I've seen a lot." Tom muttered, he had a feeling that they were powered by zoid cores too, and for some reason he had a feeling that was bad.

The one closest to him pointed the barrels on its right arm at the group and they began to glow. "RUN!" Tom shouted. "IT'S GOT A BIG LASER RUN!" When it fired, at the apparent leader, the beam was more than twice as powerful as Tom's. That was judging by the beam size and crater size. The bazooka began firing off and Tom had to shield himself with a full city block of buildings. "That thing is too big for a fair fight." Tom muttered as he jumped onto a roof. "I guess that's why I have to fight it."

He leapt from roof top to roof top in his shadow fox as Tom went towards the robot that was firing at him. At 1500 yards he had a definite lock and held down the trigger. The shots impacted leaving only small dents. Shots from other units were doing more damage. Finally a sniper shot from a gun sniper far away did serious damage. Tom then let up on the trigger and launched at the lurching machine. He prepared for a strike laser claw when the robot actually caught his zoid. Several shots at the hand managed to make the robot release Tom. Then the robot took off into the air it began to loom over the shadow fox. Suddenly a white beam crackled through the air at the robot. The robot turned and countered with its own. The two beams were able to cancel due the white one lasting longer and the yellow being more powerful. Tom remembered then that he had missile packs on his zoid and opened them a massive storm of more missiles than any other one zoid coming out and hitting the machine and severely damaging it. Tom then leapt at the downed and injured foe of his and had his claw pierce its chest. Tom grinned in victory when a light came out of the chest then the thing exploded. When the smoke cleared the shadow fox actually was far away from the enemy robot and okay.

"I made it out pretty fast. But I doubt I could do it again. So no-one follow my example and try a close range attack to the chest." Tom turned to face one of the other ones in the sky and fired his main cannon destroying it in another massive explosion. "Aim for the not chest if you try close range. The head should be where the cameras are. We're going in for now. I'll try and destroy the third wall for you guys." Tom had been talking to everyone in general but now he was off.

The fight was a long and hard one. More of the robots came out over the course of the fight, but they didn't have as much impact as the first bunch. They did slow down the advance but not by much. However finally the main group, that is the one with Tom, reached the actual inner palace. The day was late and the palace was heavily guarded, as well as big. "Call it a day Tom. The palace can't hold out with an army at the gates."

Tom looked at the building wondering. "I can't help but disagree."

On cue a radio transmission blared out loud and clear. "Enemy forces are striking us in the rear, the base is also under attack and un-able to reinforce or damage. The base is fine but the rear has been hard hit, we need support at our rear."

Tom sighed, "I hate being right." His shadow fox jumped onto the wall and began gunning the inside. "I'll go into the palace; you guys stop the enemy's rear assault."

"If you say so." Reddy muttered.

"Ay, you get all the easy work then." Fred waved as they took off.

Tom nodded to them as the left and then faced the keep grounds; there was no-one present. Not a single of the 'heavy guards'. Tom actually leapt onto the palace and jumped up the physical outside of the building out of boredom. "I wonder if I can get myself a mobile suit." He muttered as he leapt around landing on broad walkways. Here and there he saw a soldier, or other random person but he didn't find any solid resistance. Then he came across to massive steel doors. "Do I blast utterly or just damage a bit." A white flash and in Tom's hand appeared a sword. "A bit it is." Tom leapt at the door with sword in hand looked around saw no-one and walked over to the entry panel. He replaced the sword in his hand with a small device and began pushing buttons. After a minute he hit pay dirt and the doors opened before him.

There inside was a large version of one the mobile suits that were outside. However it was much bigger than the rest and rather than being all silver it was largely purple and gold. Also the shoulders were more like plain ball bearings with armor. The armor simply was a piece of metal that curved partly over and down to just below the elbow. On the armor were missiles of some sort. The legs were more narrow and humanoid and the jet engines were not jets but rocket thrusters capable of space travel. The arms were also more human proportioned than the massive arms of the machines outside. The swords on the machines back were massive metal swords had an elegant and deep curving. Between each of the shoulders and the head were a pair of small Gatling guns about the size of Tom's body minus his head and a little more than his double his neck (Small for the size anyway, and smaller than Tom's uber gun). It carried a scaled up handheld gatling gun that plugged into the suit itself on its back. Also there was a large odd looking rifle on the back that was there. Tom looked it over with some ideas of what it may be, but he really wasn't 100 sure. Tom then noticed two large rocket packs on the shoulders.

"Are those what I think they are? Cause I think they are exact replicas of the tallgeese vernier engines." Tom muttered in awe. "Whoever the hell designed those must have made sure, at least in models anyway, that the suit could survive." Tom paused in thinking about what abilities he associated the engines with. "Damn that suit must be impressive." Running up to the cockpit Tom felt around in a few reflexive places to open it up from the outside. But then he realized that he was thinking in a zoid mindset and this machine wasn't a zoid. He closed his eyes reached his hand and tapped one spot without even trying. He sighed felt right near that spot grabbed a small niche in the armor opened up a small panel and pushed the one button inside. The cockpit opened up and Tom hopped in and opened his eyes. "Little different than anything I remember. Must be a bit zoid based." Looking around he went –ah- and pushed a button that closed the door and energized the cockpit. With a moment of consideration he flipped a group of switches on the cockpit's surface the screen turned on and the machine began to hum. Tom looked at the forwards screen and then curved his neck around to make sure he had a full view of everything. Then he grinned. "This shouldn't he hard." Opening up the cockpit Tom looked at his belt. He had re-built his old belt by a miracle of some sort. He thought and a large sword appeared in the gundams hand. Tom laughed, "There's a reason I put that particular weapon in the belt." Grinned as he maneuvered the sword to the point on the left of the waist where he would want to put it. Getting out and personally attaching the belt he got back in when some soldiers came in.

"HEY! What the hell are you doing that's the former commander Lisa dorell's custom suit!" He, and the people with him, began to shoot at the open cockpit.

Tom laughed a spiteful laugh of course Lisa had made this thing, she was a Zenebas pillar of technology and must have made the things outside. And this being her suit made sense, it resembled her original one to pretty good degrees. The firing outside actually coming from in front of him made Tom snap out of his revelation. "Just lie down and give up." Tom said over the suit speakers as he closed the cockpit door. The screen came on and they hadn't stopped shooting. Tom flipped the switches again and the eyes glowed. The men outside cowered but didn't stop. Tom sighed and with the flip of a switch directly in front of him the small guns by the head revealed themselves. Bending down slightly so that the barrels were leveled on the people right in front of him Tom ripped them apart in two seconds of fire. Then an explosion racked his behind turning much more rapidly to deal with this threat the main gatling gun blew away all of the resistance on that half of the castle. At least it seemed to those who saw Tom fighting back. "No more mercy." Tom muttered as he produced his odd rifle. He pointed it and a yellow beam, much smaller than that of the shadow fox's beam cannon came out and hit people trying to come and fight him. Tom stopped only when access to this hangar was limited to the way he came in. Turning back that way Tom took off finding the brigades radio frequency he shouted, "Don't attack the purple and gold flying machine!", as he flew several hundred feet above the grounds of the palace and city. Then he saw his first enemy of importance, a group of six silver mobile suits holed behind an intact section of city border wall. Many of them were armed with Gatling guns and were taking a heavy toll on the people trying to get them out. Tom flew overhead and could hear some sort of praise, one long burst from his gatling gun silenced that. "Well I guess I've got more to do, could you guys go try and take the palace I don't think there's a lot of resistance from here to there."

"Sure sir. And thanks for saving us." Came the voice of the squad leader.

"No problem, I've got my normal machine with me so it's easy now."

"You're what?" The confused squad leader asked.

"Earth technology. Or earth like anyway." Tom stopped hovering in one spot and ran off to another spot in the city where enemy mobile suits were. Along the way a large group of Zenebas Zoids surrounded him and began firing.

"We saw what you did!" Came one voice particularly loud and accusing. "We won't let you live!" He shouted as a small ambush occurred and several heavy firepower Zoids popped out from around some corners and blasted Tom with everything. "Take this you bastard!" The man shouted. Finally after a little while the ambushers were out of ammo and they stopped firing. Then yellow shots took out the people that had started out at Tom's back. "The hell!" The one person shouted as fifteen of his comrades were destroyed. "That should have annihilated you!"

Tom's laugh could be heard. "I thought Lisa had done just an OK job of replicating a mobile suit. The fact is, this mobile suit is armored with gundanium alloy, and you're stupid attacks are nothing but insect bites!" Then the suit flew up into the grouping of Zenebas aerial troops and produced his curved swords. He flew after eight of the Zoids and cut them in half. With his swords being the full lengths of many a pteras, storm sworder, raynos, zabat, and other aerial Zoids. Flying down at the gun snipers that had ambushed him he flew only two feet off the ground and cut the group of gunsnipers to pieces. Then he took off again seeming to leave the other Zoids alive but faced down and fired his small Gatling guns at the survivors at the rear of the group. "It may just be shock value, but I'm kicking ass!" Tom laughed as he decided to push his machine to the limits. As his engine output meter showed being at 80 (all he was comfortable to taking it to until he knew his machine better) he looked at his speed. It was at over 180 miles per hour. For something this size that was impressive.

Another group of Zenebas mobile suits faced Tom's point blank wrath, he danced into the middle of them and cut them up with his twin blades. Then the Zoids that had been around him tried to blast him but he produced his small odd rifle and, using it in one hand, hovered around the small flat area that had formed and blasted at enemies left and right. Three minutes of skating around saw all of his enemies dead. And then he was off again, this time to remain the hero's avenging angel in the sky as he shot down at enemies on the ground. Finally he came upon the remnants of the enemy counter assault. There were virtually no enemies left, the brigade had put up a strong and defensive fight at the mesa's edge. But Tom still blasted the few left in order to make sure that they would stay back for a bit longer. Finally with all of his self appointed missions Tom felt it was time to take the engines to 100. When he went it was more than 100 that he felt and hit. 100 was just for his vernier engines, the other various boosters that he activated for this 100 made his 100 more like 200. Tom laughed as his super body almost completely shrugged off the g's he felt as he made it back to the capitol in a mere 3 minutes, making several circles around the capitol building. Finally he brought down his machine where he had taken it up from. He sighed, this days work was done, next was a way to destroy the communications of the attacking army while not actually holding all of a capitol building or city. Then one last radio communication came that the loathed.

"SIR THE ENEMY IS BRINGING AN ULTRASAURUS THIS WAY!!" Tom heard, he looked around, there were more weapons for his machine that he could see, and they sure looked useful now.

"Roger that, my ETA to the base is approx. thirty minutes, I'll being piloting a purple and gold humanoid machine." Tom then gathered up all his weapons and took off one more time to deal with his newest threat.

-End-

Well a few things must be said. When Tom was kicking ass, save when he fought something thousand Zoids, it was just his personal skill, cause he's that good. And when he gets in the giant robot he kicks ass all on his own cause he's five times better.

Also, tallgeese, beam rifle, gundanium, Gundam, mobile suit. I think there are more but I won't talk about them. It should be more obvious to everyone that Tom's earth is a Gundam earth. I expect to expand this idea eventually, but not terribly soon. So it may practically be like a Gundam cross over, or I'll use original Gundam characters I made only, I don't really know. But that's a long way off so don't worry.


	16. Chapter 16

Rebirth of the Guardians – the long awaited sequel to chapter – 15

Rebirth of the Guardians – the long awaited sequel to chapter – 15

Chapter 16 – war with an Ultrasaurus

So I've established Gundam somewhere in the far (I mean far when I say far) future. As an aside I won't really pick (meaning you will be able to imply but not necessarily choose) a particular choice in a Gundam universe.

Also, as a random aside, the mobile suits from last chapter kind of (in my mind anyway) look, are armed similarly too and act like the serpent mobile suits from Gundam wing endless waltz. I didn't mean that but it happened anyway.

Um… I don't have much else to say so on with the chapter!

-Begin-

Lazar Kaganovitch was very unhappy. Not only did he have reports on the death of his earth woman he had confirmed reports that the last earthling man was leading an assault on his capitol city. It was something that tended to put dictators in very bad moods. Not only had his assault lost most of its initial momentum but he had to deal with a bunch of guardian force loons attacking his home city. "And they won too." Lazar muttered between gritted teeth. That was the biggest blow that they had won. The capitol, although admittedly not impossible to take, should have been close enough to have the new enemies lose. Although there were reports that about half of the city was under Zenebas control the palace had actually been taken and held as well as Lisa dorell's personal mobile suit that she had custom made with the new alloy lunar titanium. (Gundam!) And the empire had lost its revolutionary 'mobile suits' as Lisa had called them. Supposedly, while not as specialized as Zoids they were much more generally capable of all sorts of fighting and thus able to be, in some respects, more effective machines. The fact that they were three times the height of Zoids didn't hurt their odds in battle. However he had several on each Ultrasaurus still moving towards the enemy acting as mobile front line bases. As well as fifty on his own custom command Ultrasaurus. His was larger than the standard models and had been under construction for over 100 years. It had more firepower and zoid storage. And for this special campaign it had 500 backup Zoids traveling with it on the path back to the city. And now, still 10 days out of range for accurate fire, the city was just visible through binoculars and not laser scopes. And of course it was visible for the invaders in the city as well.

Lazar Kaganovitch was not a happy man, he had lost his capitol and his assault had finally lost its initial momentum at almost the exact same time. And now he was going to bring about his revenge.

Several miles away and only eight days away from being in firing range of the Ultrasaurus the attack group sat on top of the plateau and looked at the giant thing on the other side of the hills. Gunsnipers were already taking potshots at enemy Zoids, and when they missed they hit the Ultrasaurus. And did nothing… Tom had arrived at the base a few hours earlier and was currently staring at the Ultrasaurus with a few other people through laser scopes binoculars and other devices that would allow them to get a good look at the giant zoid. The people on the cliff talked about this attack method and that one, but came to no real solution. Every now and then reports came in from the city that things were going their way, and such and such and area had been captured, or so many Zoids had been captured. There had even been a report of a capturing of three mobile suits completely unharmed. Tom had shown little joy about that saying, "It's not easy to pilot a mobile suit. They're extremely different from Zoids you know."

"True." Had come Tom's voice again, "But I have training to do that." Everyone looked to see no-name in a captured suit carrying two others with him. "I think you'll want to have me help out." No-name said dropping the two machines down on the ground and landing his own as well. No-names machine and the other two he had brought with him were different than the models that had been in the city. No-names was like Tom's except the shoulder were protected by much more bulky armor and the armor was much thicker in general. The other two had jets in place of shoulders and small wings coming out of the sides. They were capable of something more like aerial zoid flight.

Tom looked at the mobile suits and ran over to one cockpit. "Hmm… It's armed with a self destruct mechanism… I think I have an idea." He stuck his special training device (that survived via a special P.L.O.T. shield (don't ask what is stands for, it's just a dumb acronym made to make an obvious fourth wall reference)) in a computer port and began running some sort of simulation on it. After a few minutes Tom hopped into cockpit and put his hands on the controls. "Do you have some piloting A.I.?" He asked someone who was nearby.

"Yeah, a lot of it is in use in Zoids but we can spare a couple of units." The man said, "You need two right?"

"Yea, but I think I'm going to bring these suits inside. I've got some sort of plan, I think."

Later when all four mobile suits were inside Tom hooked up his simulator to a computer and a projector began showing his plan. "My plan may not be perfect, but it's the best we've got. The way I see it is ultrasauruses have two weaknesses, the cockpit and the legs. Since the stupid machine can rip through a whale king that wanders into its line of fire with ease as well as anything else that reaches the cockpit our primary option is a low flying attack on the legs with big weapons. In come the mobile suits and beam cannons. Because they're so damn huge and beam weapons are massively powerful." A scenario where the mobile suits jetted into firing range of the ultrasauruses legs played on the screen in full color. "Here while no-name and myself fire at things that try and shoot the other two mobile suits the two unmanned suits hit the leg and self destruct, hopefully destroying the leg, if not no-name and I will shoot it with big lasers a lot and pray it then goes boom." A scenario where the two mobile suits crashed into the leg and exploded and destroyed the leg was played, and then one where the leg survived was played. "Either way the Ultrasaurus will be weak and we'll be able to take it out at our mercy with whatever weapons we choose."

"What if they shoot you down?" Someone asked.

Tom laughed, "Trust me, they won't."

"What if they shoot you down because you were arrogant?"

"Trust me. They. Will. All. Die. I will kill every one of those murderous bastards who dared to manipulate forces beyond their level of comprehension and make them regret they days they were born."

"Will you try and strike the cockpit?" Another person asked a somewhat fuming Tom.

"Maybe, if luck allows it." He grumbled as he pushed buttons on his simulator. "Here's a simulation for a successful attack like that, upper right hand corner will display the odds in a bit." The simulation began with the mobile suits just flying around and unleashing all of their arms payloads on the cockpit, and the unmanned ones ending up smashing into the legs and self destructing anyway. The upper right hand corner had this number in it, 4/235697. (No I don't know if the fraction can be reduced) Tom sighed, "Knowing me and my luck I'll probably take the harder path and actually try and point blank attack of some sort where the odds are smaller still. But hey that's me. Now of course the only good thing about this simulator is that I didn't include any assisting forces in it helping us. I don't think I need a lot of them in order to live, but I need a lot in order to win." Tom grumbled as he began putting numbers into his little machine. "I can't say how many, but the more the merrier I suppose. And besides how else are we going to deal with all those enemy Zoids that are in the Ultrasaurus." Tom pocketed his simulator. "Well I'm set in my plan; I'll let the actual army commanders decide how many troops we need."

The various generals there looked at Tom in disbelief, "You mean you aren't going to guide us further?" One exclaimed.

"No not really."

"But you're the last earthling, a super human who should be able make decisions like these with ease!" Another shouted.

"You know what; I'm sick and tired of being considered a strategic genius. As far as strategy goes I just have a bit of luck numbers and chance work together for me. All I have more than you is personal skill." Tom sighed, he really was tired of all this considering of him as a superior earthling were tiring. This was planet Zi not earth!

"Fine then." One general said calmly, "I know that my entire zoid unit is just sitting around here doing nothing. We will deploy our 500 Zoids in assistance of you."

"Ok, I'll leave troop distributions to you all then. I've got to work on my machine." Tom walked off already having a head full of ideas what to do.

Thirty six hours later in the dead of night the attack squad moved out with the two doll suits in the lead while Tom and no-name took up the rear with machines that were armed to the teeth. Tom had a small key pad on his lap and he entered a few words complaining about using zoidian characters for programming and mumbling about assembling the program from binary. Then the two doll suits took off much faster than Tom and no-name headed towards the forwards left leg. "I set them to evade all fire and self destruct upon contact with the leg." Tom set his machine down and pulled out a beam cannon it began to cackle with black electricity. "Just in case we'll get ready to fire." Tom was not in error in thinking that, for as the suits closed in lights and weapon fire tore through the sky.

Then his own men began blasting away with several units carrying heavy weapons packs. The firepower ratio was highly in their favor. Then the two suits impacted, albeit damaged but still they landed. Tom pushed two buttons at once to arm the missiles and activate the self destruct simultaneously. The explosion was grand, and then a moment after it passed Tom and no-name both fired their weapons. Tom's beam cannon and no-names hyper bazooka. The two impacted at the leg shortly after the explosions began to fade, and promptly made new ones. A moment passed and nothing happened. "Not exactly what I was hoping for…" Tom trailed as he fired again, and several more times. "Crap." He cursed plainly as he threw aside his overheated weapon. "Seems the armor is a lot tougher than I thought it would be. Means we gotta try something else."

"What?"

"I see two command points that are natural weak spots on the zoid. I figure if they both go then we effectively shut this zoid down."

"I thought you said that was almost impossible!" No-name replied as his machine went back to back with Tom's and the pair fired at enemies around them.

"Back in the day I was known for making the impossible possible." He paused as there was a moment of peace. "Let's do this." The two took off, "I've got the upper command point." Tom said, and then he and his partner scattered.

Tom took off strafing the surface of the massive Ultrasaurus as he was attacked from guns on the body of the zoid and enemies in the air.

In the main cockpit Lazar got reports of the two mobile suits buzzing around his personal command zoid headed his way, he instantly ordered every gun to be pointed at them and kill then both. Everyone listened without a thought.

Tom now faced a much larger bombardment; he heard a large boom far down the neck and saw No-name fire shots into the lower cockpit. In his moment of distraction they all appeared, and by 'they all' I mean every freakin zoid and mobile suit that had been within firing range when Lazar ordered Tom dead thirty seconds ago. And by 'appeared' I mean the ones within firing range were now an obstacle in Tom's path and many others were firing at him. Tom, floating at a relatively peaceful pace in the sky, decided that there was nothing to do but make a big boom in the enemy forces. Producing his beam rifle he shot enemies out of the sky like flies. Putting his gatling gun in the other hand he blew away two people before the Gatling gun was shot. Throwing the weapon up above him he blasted it three times making it and a few random machine parts explode.

Then one enemy came in close at Tom's front and Tom swatted it away with his rifle. Another came in at his back while he shot the attacker and grabbed his right arm. Tom quickly produced one curved sword and cut the mobile suit in half. But then it took his rifle with it before exploding. Taking both curved swords they glowed red and emitted heat. Slicing up several foes above him Tom made it to a few hundred feet from the main cockpit. Activating his mini Gatling guns he prepared to fire on the cockpit when enemies lined up in his path. Not thinking to let go of the trigger he ripped through all but one of them. This one unit was a special unit that looked like his own, but had the two guns he had just thrown away. Producing them as Tom had the pilot fired on Tom who evaded and launched the missiles that were on the armor. The enemy suit that was like his didn't even move while he watched the missiles shoot around him. Tom was sure the pilot must have spent a good thirty seconds figuring what Tom had been thinking when he launched the missiles. But Tom knew they would bite his foe in the ass plenty soon enough. After way too many minutes of floating in the air waiting for something to happen the suit pointed its weapons at Tom who didn't flinch in the least. Then four blue lasers tore through the machine with heartless precision killing the pilot and sending the suit crashing into the ground in one go. The four rockets were the source of these beams and they now had small nodes sticking out of them where the lasers had originated from and were floating in the air. They spread out and began causing chaos killing more people. Tom then took off at the cockpit with his two curved swords heating up in preparation for melting the people inside.

Inside Lazar Kaganovitch stood momentarily still in shock. Then after a few seconds he shouted, "WHERE IS THAT CUSTOM IRON KONG!" As he himself began to walk out of the cockpit. "I'm retreating to my quarters. My life cannot be risked now not with the one person capable of taking my life so close to doing it." He got no words of dissatisfaction with his statement or order and was allowed to leave not paying attention to the arrival of said custom iron Kong.

Said iron Kong grabbed the two swords and held it with it's very human like hands. Tom was caught on this new foe and began to try and disable him by heating up the blades to their max. However this made the actual structure weak and thus the iron Kong was able to snap the two swords, even though it was at the cost of the use of his fingers. But a solid metal blob hurts more than a metal fist and the pilot made smart use of that. However Tom caught incoming blow with his machines left hand and pointed his right hand forwards as the four special funnels (the 'missiles' official designation) followed his command firing on the Kong and damaging it. However the zoid fired back and destroyed all four. However it met Tom's special sword he had transported for his own use. One swing removed the Zoids arm. "I should have used this from the start." Tom commented as he took up a stance vaguely similar to a golfer before a good 500+ yard putt and came around in a long arc through the iron Kong's head. Then back through the middle of the Iron Kong's body the long way and into the Ultrasaurus. The blade made a circle that didn't remove the head but it still scraped the floor of the cockpit and killed the Tom/zoidian genetic experiment zoid commander. Reaching a point behind the ultrasauruses head Tom leapt above the neck and dashed down with his sword curing around the neck to finally remove the head. Finally as the head fell to the ground the fire slowed and eventually stopped as the Ultrasaurus saw explosions in various areas of its body where important things were.

Tom sighed in relief in his cockpit the conflict was, in theory, finally over. Now he just had to go and take reddy to another continent and get rid of the machine he was currently in.

Stupid machine…

-End-

Well that's all done and over with, I don't got more to say


	17. Chapter 17

Rebirth of the Guardians – the long awaited sequel to chapter – 16

Rebirth of the Guardians – the long awaited sequel to chapter 16

Chapter 17 – Crazy old doc

Well now everyone evil has died, so let's get about finding some team mates in a couple of 'short' chapters.

And by short I mean get some snacks, or dinner, cause odds are these are gonna last forever.

-Begin-

How Tom had managed to leave the battlefield with reddy, his reddler, Tom's shadow fox, and the mobile suit. A few people suspected Tom's old unit had something to do with it but no-one was certain. But no matter how you sliced it he was gone and now the rebellion only had a clone of him to use as an imitation of him. Everyone, clone included, said that was a good plan.

-

Tom sighed as he took a boat away from the city. On it was his zoid, reddy's, that old blade liger they had found some time back, the still modified shadow fox, and the mobile suit. All of these were on a guysack transport train and were headed to the new continent. Tom was attached to all of them and even though he was going to destroy the mobile suit he wanted to have it go to good use before then. That and he really wanted to be far away from an entire continent that recognized his face and his damn machine. So as he stood on the top deck looking at his nearly empty wallet he sighed. The only good thing about heading back was that the battle federation was primarily housed on the continent they were traveling to. It had been at a small colony of the republic that he had signed up to join the military long ago and left behind his zoid barracks from when he was considered a world class zoid battler. He paused in thought and then swore his face was just as recognized here as anywhere on the damn planet. Maybe he could go the artic continent on the north pole of Zi, as best he could remember it was uninhabited.

"Dad!" Reddy called to Tom. "Some crazy old guy just stole my ice cream!"

Tom looked at reddy confused, not because of the whole dad thing it was both a cover and a legal truth since Tom had managed to adopt him under Zenebas law (and by adopt I mean convince the adoption agency to just give him the kid (no this does not make him bad, he just blew up the city and these guys were being un-agreeable)). He was confused as to when reddy got ice cream. "When did you get ice cream?" He asked as he walked over to a pointing reddy.

Tom's question was never answered as he rounded the corner to face a crazy old man in a lab coat with ice cream and an orange cat. "Hey the kid never had this ice cream!"

Tom glared angrily at reddy, "Is this true?"

Reddy looked back, "No!" He shouted, then ran after the old man, "GIVE ME BACK MY ICE CREAM!"

"No mine you little brat!" The old man in the lab coat shouted and ran off. Tom and reddy quickly took chase.

When people asked why they were running Tom replied, "I fell off the boat and we're trying to find me help." (I've done something _very _similar once) Needless to say this made the people become busy, either looking for help, or wondering what Tom has just said.

Finally, after nearly two hours of running about the ship Tom grabbed reddy and brought him to a quick and forceful stop. Heaving from exhaustion, a rare event for him, he sighed and said, "You're ice cream is as good as gone."

"I know that, I wanna get the crazy old doc back for stealing my ice cream." Reddy said angrily.

Tom got down to reddy's level put his hand on Reddy's head and turned it around, "There's the cafeteria, it sells ice cream. Get yourself some the same way you did last time, however that was, and meet me at the room." Reddy nodded and walked off. Tom sighed, "Now to follow that dock to the cargo level." Tom quickly and quietly ran to the nearby stairwell and walked down it. Following it all the way to the bottom he saw a security guard there and flashed his vehicle owner ID and got in. Tom chuckled as he dodged between the many vehicles chained in the ships cargo hold. "Really doc, if you were interested you could just ask." He muttered to himself as he arrived at his own little guysack train. "Two guysacks for all this cargo that was a lot of power I needed." Tom said as he walked to the first box behind the forward guysack. "And the money I had to pay for the cargo ticket was a bitch. And then the money to make sure that they didn't look through this container." Tom shook his head as he approached the open hatch. "And then this nutcase gets in no problem. He got in the container and put his hand on the doctor's shoulder. "And then you get in here like that. What am I sacrificing all this money for?" He asked sarcastically at the stunned man in a lab coat with an orange cat.

"You have _this _model!" The doctor shouted.

Tom reeled back in shock and pulled out a handgun from inside his shirt. "How the hell do you know that!" Tom asked almost scared.

"I helped design it and the mass produced types a few years back." The doctor said with a grin on his face.

"So these designs are a few years old? That explains how they got so many." Tom muttered keeping his gun out but relaxing a bit. "So how did you get out of the Zenebas nation?" Tom asked.

"Well I own this shipping service your riding on now and I have for years. But, you see, I've made several custom designs for several, I guess you could call, questionable buyers that had abilities, and luxury that surpassed the finest military seafaring vessels and cruise ships alike."

"Ooh you stuck more firepower on a private ship than a cruise ship. I think my gun here gives this ship ten times the firepower of a cruise ship." Tom said finally dropping his gun and closing the entrance.

"I mean more firepower than a military ship and more luxury than a cruise liner damn it!"

"Keep talking." Tom said motioning with his gun in one hand now.

"Well one of my customers was a man named lazar Kaganovitch. His ship was special, it could transform. Well at least partly. He wanted a ship where a majority of the weapons systems could be hidden in the ship in some manner. I gave him a ship that stored a mad thunders worth of weapons, including ultra advanced weapons with new abilities and scaled down versions of more conventional ones. To say the least the man was impressed. And when he saw the new weapons he truly desired my services. So I split my time, between the Zenebas capitol and the sea shore until we made the first 100 mas produced units. Then I was given an option, help develop more units and receive my typical payment plus the price for the boat per successful operating unit type or leave. As you could imagine I took the first." Then the doctor paused.

"Go on." Tom said motioning with the gun, "I'm not gonna shoot you or let you leave until you're done talking. No matter _what _the consequences."

"_Well_ when I decided to stay someone took over for me, and I also retired me getting on in years and all. Then the man introduced me to his many mad ideas and I regretted staying. Sure reveling in all that extremely advanced earth technology was helping my own designs but that mans madness was, well, maddening!" The doc took a moment to breathe and compose himself. "Well a couple months ago I hear about his, just now finishing, grand assault plan. Didn't do much for me at the time, but then shortly before the assault began I heard about him leaving along with mass amounts of Zoids and other war machines."

"_Other _war machines?"

"Primitive earth tanks, fighters, not much other than the mobile suits were terribly complex. Well there was the katana fleet but…" Doc rubbed his chin for a moment, "I'll tell you about it when we're closer to landfall and I know where my future ties will lie."

Tom glared intensely at Doc for some time holding his gun much tighter, but eventually he let up his judgmental glare and nodded his approval. "Any way I heard about his leaving, and the quadrupled security on us important people. So I'm stuck, until about a month ago when you and your liberation army arrives at the capitol city where I am. The short version is your assault allows for a lot of old Zenebas rules to be broken by force and me, and lots of other people wanting to leave, left. Is the short version good enough for you?"

Tom sat for a moment and then got up, "It'll pass."

"Good, I was hoping it would. I don't mind telling the longer version, but the plain facts are, it's long." Doc walked out, and when Tom motioned to say something he said, "I know, no-one will know about this. And as a good favor I'll get the customs people to not check you stuff on the way out for free."

"Will you now?"

"Hey I used to own this company, they'll do a small favor for me like passing a single enclosed container in a heartbeat." He said with a laugh.

Tom watched as Doc left (yes I'm referring to him as Doc even now, HE HAS NO OTHER NAME!) and muttered to himself, "That guy is pretty damn smart. This mobile suit out performs the model it was meant to replicate by epochs of technology. I could imagine it being pretty good but with what is on Zi this thing is amazing. I need him." Then Tom looked at a beeping red dot on the Doc's coat. "And I need to keep track of him too."

Reddy had arrived in the room about twenty minutes before Tom, ice cream in hand. He had then lay on the bed and eaten it all before he got back. So then he sat on the edge of the bed and put his head in his hands and sighed. "I'm so bored." He walked over to a screen by the door and pushed a button. After a few moments a very cartoony animation of the ship appeared in the water between the continents and below it was the time left to travel. "Four days!" Reddy shouted. "Damn it. It was more interesting in the military at least." He walked over to his bed and lay down.

Then Tom came in, "I have some almost good news, I think."

"You unsure of anything." Reddy said still on his bed, "Well then it must be serious."

"That guy who stole your ice cream, well he's a mad scientist of a sort. I managed to talk to him and draw his favorable attention." Tom paused, "I think two things, one that his attention was favorable. Two that his attention is good."

"Heh, all you're smarts and you still can't figure out people." Reddy said with a laugh.

"I was floating around in space for an eon or two you know." Tom jested back, "But seriously he designed this ship on his own using just his brain for technology. I think he may be able to help me with some things."

"What sort of things?"

"The sort that I'll talk to you when we are far from everything."

"Fair enough." Reddy said as he resigned himself to wondering about what Tom was thinking of for the remainder of the journey.

-

In his large room Doc put down his cat, Garfield, and sat down in a chair. "The katana fleet. I wonder if it was used during the assault." He muttered to himself as he petted his cat on the bed. "I doubt it, it being on another continent and all. And I hope it hasn't, I would like to have one of those ships." The doc smiled, "And I would like him to have one of those ships too."

-

Finally some four days later as Tom hopped into his front guysack and Reddy the rear one (there's two guysacks cause they're transporting the weight of something like 5 and ½ or more Zoids (that figure is just assuming the Gundam only weighs 1 ½ times a zoid, and the shadow fox doesn't now). As Tom prepared to leave and pulled out his wallet in case the old man decided to back out on their very flimsy deal he was surprised when he saw said old man appear on the intercom between him and reddy. Then he saw the mans cat. "Hello there doc." Tom said with slight disappointment in his voice.

"I've decided I'm coming with you at least until you reach the location of the Katana fleet. Also I'll make sure the guards don't search that one container you don't want them to. I do expect you to listen to me or else I will be gone at the first chance I get."

"And let me guess you'll take the Gundam with you?" Tom said with melancholy.

"Yep."

"Oh great, another potential threat. Fine we'll do what you want but I want to get back to my zoid base to deposit all of this stuff. Then you can do whatever."

Doc seemed to think it over to himself then nodded and said, "I'll come with you so they know not to search you."

Tom nodded and kept his cockpit door open as he pushed a button to engage the dual guysack synch drive program. As he very slowly inched up at a rate of almost not moving (THIS GUYSACK IS SLOW, if you didn't get the hint, lol) the Doc managed to arrive in time and hop in the cockpit. When a customs officer asked why the doc had been running Doc replied, "I had put my cat with his son," doc said motioning to Tom who waved at the guard, "And had to get to the front."

"But you were barely moving." The officer said to the doc.

"Look I'm old damn it and this thing is long. Just go look in the back and you'll see my cat!"

When the customs officer came back from his check he said, "Found your cat. We did what the on ship people asked for you."

"Thank you very much." Tom said, "Can we go?"

"You're free to move along." The officer said waving him along. Tom then inched along at a slow rate, a real slow one.

-

Finally two days later Tom arrived in the town closest to where his base was. Stopping on the edge of town he said to Doc and reddy at once, "Just wait here a bit I've gotta check something out with someone and then we'll go."

He walked out of his guysack and into town, until he found yet another non-descript house on the block with a zoid hangar and a garage on the side. "This should be it." He walked up and knocked on the door. A moment passed and a man that looked to be in his 40's opened up.

"Oh, um, hi Tom, it's been a while." He said anxiously.

"Yes it has." Tom said slightly suspicious.

"Well come in, I suppose we should catch up." He said motioning inside.

"No I've got people waiting in a vehicle inside of town so you can tell me here."

"Um, well, you see…"

"What happened John?" Tom asked him.

"Well about leaving me to watch the base, I went on a vacation for five days and then 30 bandits got in. I had hired someone to watch it for me for those days, but I guess they did a bad job." John was rubbing the back of his head in shame.

Tom sighed, "Well I guess what happens happens. Is there anything else I should know?"

"Well if you're going to deal with it they've only had the base for three weeks so that means you're secret doors are probably fine."

"That's good news."

"The bad news is that they took a couple of high ranking warrior's hostage and are using them like a shield."

"Oh, crap. I guess I should move faster then."

"Do you want me to come along?"

"No you've done a good job for the past year. I can handle this."

"Are you sure, I mean I called the police and neither them or the IZF could get them out."

"It's my base I can do it." Tom then turned around and ran off. "Thanks for doing what you did do though!"

"Um, sure."

-

Over the visual intercom doc and reddy were playing virtual go fish, "Got any, umm sevens?" Reddy asked as he looked at his screen.

"Go fish!" Doc shouted happily.

"Ok so I draw my first card, you've got thirty on the other hand."

"SO WHAT!" Doc shouted angrily when he saw Tom running, "Tom's back, and running. Is running ever good for him?"

"Probably not." Reddy muttered.

"Mmm…"

Tom hopped in the guysack cockpit. "Ok, plans have changed. Base is currently in the hand of bandits and we've got to get it back."

-End-

For those of you who aren't sure what happened when, here's a rough timeline up to this current point in the story

Approx 500 years ago – Zenebas prepares it most fledgling army for war

Approx 1-3 years ago – then Zenebas chancellor Lazar Kaganovitch plans out his final war plan codename 'VW' (for victory in western continent, personally based off of VE day (victory in Europe WWII))

Approx 1 year ago (a little less than) - Tom 'Reynolds' joins the recently formed guardian force and after _very _short training goes into his first mission

Approx 10 to 2 months ago – Tom works with his small base crew and takes part in various missions

Approx 2 months ago – VW begins, Tom's base overrun, all people inside presumed dead

Approx 1.5 months ago – Tom reveals true earthling identity and rallies an army to strike at Zenebas capitol prioritizing on a strike force that had gotten close shortly before operation VW

Approx 1 month ago (a little more than) – Tom reddy and his Zoids and singular mobile suit disappear

7 days ago – Tom buys tickets for ferry once again under 'Tom Reynolds'

6 days ago – Boards ferry (more like ocean liner really) for a return to his 'home continent' with reddy, meets Doc and gains an ally in him

2 days ago – arrives on shore, travels inland and north to old zoid base

Present – arrives in town nearest to base and discovers it is taken by bandits

And that's a rough (that's the keyword) timeline of most of the more important events in this fanfiction


	18. Chapter 18

Rebirth of the Guardians – the long awaited sequel to chapter 17

Rebirth of the Guardians – the long awaited sequel to chapter 17

Chapter 18 – No one likes mountain bandits

…

What the title is true!

Also since kokuhso is 'speaking' again, I'll remind those of you who forgot (myself included) kokuhso talks to Tom in **plain old bold text**. Tom talks back in _**italics and bold**_ and maybe there will be quotations or not. Depends on how I feel about including them. (Psycho analysts should read my stuff and tell me how I think, I reveal a lot in these little notes)

-Begin-

Tom was in his guysack and moving it at maximum speed towards his base. Maximum speed being a pitiful five miles an hour. Tom sat in his front seat hunched over angry swearing to himself while reddy and Doc played cards in the back Guysack. Finally after ten hours of traveling Tom got over three large hills and fully out of sight of town. He then stopped his train and got out. Reddy and Doc met him at the container containing the mobile suit. "Gentlemen I have a personal problem. There are mountain bandits in my zoid base. My zoid base where I develop new technologies based on old earth ones and my zoid base with all my Zoids and weapons. Now these bandits are not just any bandits but mountain bandits. No-one likes mountain bandits. So reddy I will be giving you your reddler for combat. Doc you will have the choice to use any working zoid of mine other than that or you can use _my _mobile suit. I expect it back or you dead and it destroyed." Doc stepped back in shock, "Hey it's tough to destroy one of those without killing the pilot!" Doc paused in thought with his hand on his chin and nodded his approval and agreement. "I will go in and disable the base security measures and/or re-program to take out the bandits. I'll rescue the hostages and signal for you guys to come and blast everything when you're ready."

Reddy and Doc nodded and watched Tom as he ran off. Once he was over the next hill and long out of sight reddy said, "He can fly ya know."

"No, but I have a feeling we aren't going to move until he does all the dirty work. And yourself?"

"Can you teach me blackjack?"

"Sounds like a plan." Doc and reddy hopped into the forward guysacks cockpit and began to play cards, again.

-

As Tom ran over his third hill he heard Kokuhso talk in his mind. **So are you just gonna run and run all the way to the base.**

Tom stopped in his tracks "_**Thank you for reminding me I can fly."**_ He thought about activating his wings of one sort and noted that they didn't come. He took out said belt and looked at the center buckle. "Crap no power." He sighed. "_**Kokuhso can you recharge this?**_"

**What, is the mighty billion year old human asking little old me to help him?**

**"**_**Stop being arrogant and answer, or else you'll be stuck in this body with me for millennia with out being used."**_

__**Fine, give me a shot at it. **Tom watched as his hand sparked black for a moment and small tendrils of dark flames entered the belt. After a few moments of probing they stopped and came back, **It's not gonna work with me. **Kokuhso mentally said to Tom. **The battery won't accept a mana charge.**

_**"Well you tried. I suppose the battery in this thing would get bad after some 10,000 years or so." **_ Tom sighed. He had lost his technological advantage. He could still win, it was his place, but it would be harder now.

**Well you could get help.**

_**"Shut up kokuhso. You know I don't involve innocents."**_

__**That wasn't the case with Doc now was it?**

**"**_**He knew about my Gundam. Not only did he make it he knew it was there too."**_

__**All right, tell yourself what you want to. I'm gonna tell myself what I want to hear.**

Tom stopped talking with kokuhso with that statement from him. He could fell the spirits fiery human form smirking in his mind, but Tom also knew it was his mind and he controlled it more absolutely than kokuhso would believe. So Tom walked, and walked, and walked a lot more. "At least I got here faster than the guysack." He muttered to himself as he came over a hill to the roof of his base. "Finally here." Tom muttered. He walked over to a small lip of concrete that stuck up above the ground and felt the metal that actually covered the concrete. He squatted for a moment as he remembered the near paranoid specifications he had built this building too. Two slabs of reinforced concrete separated by a two inch slab of some metal that was designed to resist bunked busters. On the outside and inside layers there was another layer of the same material two inches thick again. An Automatic laser defense grid covered a large area. He was able to pass for various reasons intentionally built into the system. But now as he looked for the one secret entry way he regretted ever leaving it without some sort of intelligent guard. It had been nice of John to do what he did, but a bad idea on his part to not have someone, an intelligent robot even, to stay there 24/7. Tom paused for a moment and returned to his original path of thought, "Why the hell did I try so hard to make it impossible to get in?" He said out loud.

Finally, after about half an hour of searching he found the hidden door to get in. "Why did I make the door so hard to find, no-one besides me would be able to get here on anything past dumb luck. And even if they did use skill I would just give them the keys and leave." Tom grumbled to himself angrily as he opened the door. Then he slipped in silently and crawled down a ladder a long distance, until he reached a small landing about eight feet high and wide. He looked at the door handle and the small door. He had designed this small cube to fit him stretched out comfortably but the door was a mere two feet high and a foot and a half or so wide. That was designed to be hard to find and enter. So if Tom ever had to use this he could hold a large number of enemies at bay with relative ease. Of course trying to get in and leave in this thing would be advantageous to the smaller number. Tom just had to hope that once outside, where the advantage was with numbers usually, there weren't more highly armed numerous foes outside.

He finally reached the door and opened it into a dark closet. There were no bandits in the closet so Tom considered himself safe. Instead of busting down the door Tom then simply hopped up on a box in the closet and snuck into the air vent making sure to close it behind him. Then he slowly, and more importantly quietly, crawled through the air vents. After some time crawling Tom came across safe door below him. "There's the weapons vault." Tom whispered to himself. Marking the wall with a scratch from a knife he had Tom continued on. "With all the cameras I've got there, along with the guards that are there, I doubt I'll make it." He muttered as he crawled along. "Gotta change the security monitors."

After several more minutes of crawling Tom came across the reinforced soundproof, bullet proof door of the security station. He could see the next vent was too small for him to enter, an intended security bonus, along with only micro vents for the safe, and a separate air system for 'special' area's of the base. Tom thought about jumping down, but decided to move along to the next vent and look in. He saw the guard present, and un-interested. "_**Kokuhso can you make this man leave for a good three to five minutes?"**_

__**Of course foolish mortal! **Mentally kokuhso laughed in Tom's mind Tom physically frowned but pointed his hand in the general direction of the watchman. A small black flame that would be invisible to those without any sort of mana related abilities (read sci-fi-ish magic) extended down to the mans head and suddenly he became more intent, but not on the security monitors.

Time passed and then the man spoke, "Oh man I gotta go. I wonder if I leave now if Miss Noventa will me angry with me." A moment passed, the mans face visibly pained, "OH GOD I GOTTA GO!" The man ran out of the room and Tom hopped out of the vent outside of room and ran in the wide open door.

He began manipulating the camera controls to show areas that were mostly outside of the base. The few that he left inside showed random badly lit areas or ones where virtually nothing was. He also ran the password system and changed the password to something called the 'secret cameras'. **What the hell are you doing?**

_**"I have too many cameras for one person to watch. So most of them are motion activated. When something passes in front of them their screen comes up. I'm deactivating that function and creating a few other hindrances that should make it so that they never see me on the cameras."**_

__**Why not just disable them outright?**

_**"Cause then they'd definitely know someone was intruding. Also they would actually screen each camera they could with intent regularly for a while. I don't plan to wait until regularly is up before I take back my base."**_

__With that Tom was done with the last of the camera alterations. He ran out of the camera room and hopped into the vent in a heartbeat. However he did hear a female screaming and the man who had gone to the bathroom defending himself. He noted that the female was being referred to as boss. "Ok so the boss is a woman." He muttered as he crawled closer to where the shouting was coming from.

**What, you can't deal with women taking charge?**

_**"No, it just means it reduces the number of people I have to kill in order to provide an immediate 'decapitation' to the group."**_

__**The group 'decapitation' being metaphorical I would assume.**

_**"Hopefully, odds are less than 50 that boss lady will be decapitated."**_

__**Whatever, you could just consume her in hellfire my…**

**"**_**Your specialty, I know." **_Tom sighed, kokuhso would cooperate when Tom wanted to use his physical power, but during mental conversations he was an ass.

Finally Tom came across a hole where he could barely see the back of the man who had run off. The man was saying, "Look if we're gonna argue let's at least do it in the camera room so I don't miss more time off the camera duty."

Tom looked as best he could, but the boss was in a blind spot and there was a corner, although Tom had no idea how much said corner interfered. One thing he could see was the boss's bare feet, which meant that she didn't wear shoes. A little more useful information for identification. Tom was then torn between going to the camera room vent hole and seeing the boss or getting the guns now and finishing the operation, in the end he decided to go there in case the opportunity to make the boss, and bandits, leave arose. Crawling to the security room vent Tom looked in to not see the boss again. But from the argument he could hear going on she was going to be there for some time. Dashing over to the other vent he ignored his earlier silence method and focused on speed planning to get in before they could leave. However when he hit the floor on a crouch he saw to big well armed men outside the door. "Well shit." Tom said flatly as he froze with his gun almost ready to shoot and the men froze in a similar position. "I don't suppose you'd just let my by?"

"You're the former owner, we know you're face from all the pictures you have around." Said one.

"Fuck, this really sucks." Tom swore as he remained stock still. "I don't suppose you're _not _going to shout for help?"

"Well we'd have radioed but you've got a gun. Although thanks for reminding us of our other option." Guard B, the more intelligent sounding of the pair said, "JEFE AYUDAME!"

Then the boss and camera man appeared, and by appeared I mean burst the door open out into the hallway. Tom grinned; some of his design ideas were more useful than others. As the door crushed one guard by accident Tom shot the other, and then kicked the door in on the guard behind it as he tackled miss boss and the camera guy. After tackling both miss boss lady and the camera guy into the ground with his large arms Tom quickly rolled off the pair and to the side of the room opposite the door. Then he stopped as he held up his gun pointed at the boss and camera guy and swore, "Crap, wrong side of the room." He muttered as he remained kneeling.

Then he looked at the boss lady, her being the more important of the two mountain bandits in the room. He looked at her, and looked at her, for some reason he felt that he should know her from somewhere. So he looked at her and looked at her, and when she said, "Hey are you ogling me!" It hit Tom who she was.

"You're Sylvia Noventa!" He shouted in realization, "But wait aren't you supposed to be one of the hostages." Tom then tilted his head in this limited act of confusion.

"Yeah," The camera guy said, "But when she managed to kick every guy in the crotch that came into the room despite being tied up, and knocking them all out, we decided she deserved more."

"So," Sylvia continued, "When the boss man calls me out I duel with three of his toughest fighters. I kicked all their asses with painful beating like you've never seen."

"She stripped too." Camera guy said shyly. Sylvia then hit him.

"How old are you?" Tom asked Sylvia.

"20 if you must know!" Sylvia said angrily. "Now I've gotta deal with you sooooo…" Sylvia began to motion to a spot under a vest she was wearing and Tom fired a shot. "SWEET JESUS!" Sylvia shouted, "I was just getting out my shot flask!" Sylvia said pulling out a silver flask.

Tom didn't flinch, "I was just shooting the door to keep your comrade crushed behind it down."

Sylvia seemed to ponder while Tom stared at her and Camera guy. Camera just looked back and forth from the door and Tom with a panicked frenzied look on his face as neither person in the room with him really seemed to understand the gravity of the situation.

"Well are you going to act stupid or are either of you going to try and shoot me?" Tom said cold and bored.

Then Sylvia pointed her flask at Tom, "It's a horrible pun, but I call this thing a shot flask for a reason." (HA PUN PWN)

She squeezed the flask and, true to it's name, a bullet flew at Tom. The bullet stopped at a certain point in front of Tom and Tom simply shot the flask, also barely scraping Sylvia's skull. She remained standing, "How the hell did you shoot my head and not kill me."

"The shot must have only damaged your hair; it may not have even actually touched you." Tom said without moving. "Is the resistance done now?" Camera guy and Sylvia nodded. Tom restrained them both to each other using handcuffs. "Now be good hostages or someone else will kill you."

Tom pushed out Sylvia and camera guy, kicking the door on the guard who had been behind it on the way out. Said guard 'oomphed' and then slumped again. Tom then ran down one hand on either persons shoulder as he took what should be the naturally least populated trip to the safe. He made the trip without running into any enemies and arrived at the safe. Taking a moment to enter the code, the very long code, and scan in his various ID's required for entry. After a moment the big door opened and Tom walked in, his hostages behind him for once. "So this is the weapons vault…" Sylvia said as she looked around in awe. She then tried to grab one of the many advanced and deadly looking weapons around her only to get a yank on the handcuff keeping her and Camera guy together where Tom had stuck the pair to a bar by the entrance. She looked at the fact that both of them were handcuffed by one handcuff. She then looked at the bar, which they were stuck on one side of. As far as she could figure Sylvia could not figure out how Tom had been able to slip the two in there without removing the bar or the handcuffs.

So she just sat in a corner fuming until camera guy, momentarily knocked unconscious by the blow with the bar woke up and remembered the weapons around him, he then tried to move and whacked Sylvia's head against the bar. Sylvia then swore loudly in several dialects including three that the camera guy understood. After a moment the guy looked at the bar and the handcuffs and asked, "Did he take them off of you?"

To which Sylvia grumbled, "No."

"Then how did he…" The camera guy trailed off as Tom walked over to them holding way, _way _too many weapons.

"I'm a wizard." Tom said as he yanked the pair along in some magical manner. Once he got them out from behind the bar, somehow, Tom shoved them in front and opened the door. Once the safe door was opened Tom immediately regretted it. Outside there were over eighty guys with at least one gun each pointed at Tom. Tom stared down all of them and then noted one in the front with a gun pointed at Tom and a knife at some guy's neck.

Tom paused and asked, "Are we going to call bargaining negotiations?"

"Aye that would be civil, I suppose the first on the list would be you wanting to leave alive with all the devices you currently carry on you?" The man with the knife to the hostage's neck said.

Tom glanced at his stuff and said, "Yes."

"I would assume we may also be doing hostage negotiation, am I correct?" Tom nodded.

"So I would assume you'd be willing to trade us our camera guy for the man I hold here." To emphasize who it was he was talking about the man pricked his hostage's neck. Tom nodded again.

"Well that's all good and nice that you're a typical negotiator but you've forgotten the one card you hold that we have to take from _you _alive." Tom showed no sign of backing down when the new element was introduced to him. "You see you just closed the door to that un-opened weapon safe. This means that you opened it and thus we need you to open in again in the future." Tom nodded again as he gripped the weapons in his hands tighter. "I would state why you can't leave now, but I think you get the idea. Of course once we get all those guns we won't need you alive of course so I figure why trade when you're all we want anyway."

Tom sighed, "You see that's why no-one likes mountain bandits. You take hostages, use a massing of your guys and then make sure to kill everyone you fight."

"Excuse me but who said we cared what people think about mountain bandits?" The man with the knife against the hostage's throat shouted.

Tom sighed, "I hold one other thing in my hands, your lives." Tom said plainly. "Just give up now and leave and you won't all die."

For a moment everyone tried to look Tom in the eye. They saw nothing unusual in it. Then he shot their leader. "I said leave." He angrily raged as the hostage ran away from his injured holder. "The first was to save on legal issues and paperwork. But the second one will kill someone." Tom watched as his threats had little effect, unless you count antagonizing 80 guys as an effect. "I didn't want to do this but…"

When Sylvia camera guy and the other hostage, Henry, awoke they were lying in the security room. They were all fine and there was no sign of anyone anywhere by the cameras. Camera guy (that's his name now) switched to the safe camera where several guns lay on the ground and there were some blood stains but no people. The camera guy began to push buttons seemingly at random until he saw a random frame still. There was a man, who looked a lot like Tom, consumed in black flames holding off an iron Kong with some sort of black field and crisping another zoid. The picture had a name, it read, "Black dragon."

-End-

OR IS IT

In their guysacks Doc and Reddy were still playing cards when doc asked, "When do we go to the base acting like we were prepared to fight?"

"When there are explosions. That's always a good time to help Tom out." Reddy said as he put down a card.

"Yeah but it's been five days." Doc added on as he looked over the hill and put down a card of his own.

Reddy looked at the clock, the hill, and his card and said, "Good point, lets' go." And the pair left.

-Real end-

Ok so it's finally done, really. I will give you some basic end credit images about what happened afterwards. Henry and Sylvia joined the newly re-formed team Ryu. Tom de-modified his command wolf and shadow fox returning them both so slightly modified base forms. Eventually Tom and Reddy returned to the places where they had seen zoid ruins where the cores were still intact and picked them up. Team ryu quickly rose the ranks and reached S-class in almost no time after this was over and gradually became the group they are today. Tom gained a relation with the IZF by playing the 'I saved the world card' and was able procure two whale kings that were able to do atmospheric exit and enter a low orbit. He garnered a full crew for one and sent it into space to become involved in a special project with an unknown objective to a majority of the people on the planet.

Camera guy became a permanent resident of the base of Team Ryu and acted as the security guard, but eventually seemed to disappear only appearing when it mattered to him, and meal time.

Yep that's _really _what happened. No I am not kidding you at all with that italicized 'really'.

Or the one in quotes.


End file.
